


The Dwarvish Word for Wolf

by RosemaryBagels



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Dwarven Culture, Elvhen Culture, Elvhen Pantheon, F/M, I recognise that BioWare has made a canon decision, Multi, OC of Plot Importance, Power Creep, Self-Loathing, Seriously no one loves the Dwarves why not, Suicidal Thoughts, Titans (Dragon Age), but given that it's stupid I've elected to ignore it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:00:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23938033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosemaryBagels/pseuds/RosemaryBagels
Summary: She's an Elf, except that she's not, from a place she won't say and a name she won't give. She's a mage who'd rather sing than use a staff, and she refuses to be boxed in by your canon dialogue choices. Her secrets have secrets, but she has a Duty to save the world, and she might as well close the Breach in the meantime.It's Dragon Age Inquisition done again, but baby, it's never been done quite like this.*“I don’t know how you expect us to trust you, if you won’t tell us who you are!” Cassandra exclaims.“Isn’t it obvious?” Dickface leans back to gesture to herself wearing what little of her stolen Dalish armour made it out of their attempt to seal the breach. “I’m a Dwarf.”
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas, Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 15
Kudos: 49





	1. The Herald of Andraste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware there's a big ask with this premise. You're going to have to trust that I know what I'm doing. Strap the fuck in, it's going to be a wild ride.
> 
> Art is done by my best friend: MissyStrange!

An excerpt from: Shit Gets Weird, The Inquisitor [REDACTED] Story

_An explanation might be necessary for this one._

_To an outsider or, as she would put it, someone who has no idea what they’re talking about, she appears Dalish. She’s certainly Elvhen, what with her waifish frame, long black hair, and obviously pointed ears. She wouldn’t even object to being called Elvhen, though that’s not what her kind were known as where she was raised. The trick (the joke) though, is in the tattoos._

_Designed to mimic Vallaslin, it would be incorrect to simply suggest her markings meant nothing. There’s truth in there, hidden around the edges, words about her place and her people written in a language no one speaks. The process of writing actual words upon faces rather than just symbology was largely lost with the fall of Arlathan, but she knows enough of the old ways and chose her words very carefully. There’s even a short phrase in Tevene in there, one that bears suspicious similarity to another once said in worship of an Ancient Dragon God._

_But surely not. Surely no one would reference such a creature for the purposes of well…_

_She thinks it rather clever. Hilarious even. That’s why it’s a joke, why she’ll bare her face proudly in front of thousands of strangers in the hope that someone will be smart enough to read it and pick up on it. Because what’s written on her face is rather… phallic in nature._

_Put plainly, it’s a dick joke._

_She’s got a dick joke tattooed on her face._

_Not a derogatory one mind you. Think of it more as a riddle to which the answer means penis, rather than any overly offensive term. And, until she deigns to introduce herself, that’s how we’ll be referring to her._

_Rest assured, she does have an actual name. One day, we might even be permitted to know it. Until that day comes, her various titles will have to do._

* * *

* * *

“I don’t know how you expect us to trust you, if you won’t tell us who you are!” Cassandra slams her hands down on the table and leans sharply forward. Josephine appears concerned at the outburst, while Cullen looks a few moments away from following the Seeker’s example. Deacon has a calm hand against her thigh, but she only has eyes for Leliana who sits across from her, unflinching. Dickface sighs. 

“Well if you asked the people outside, I’m the Herald of Andraste. Which, personally, I think is a terrible title given how un-Andrastian I am.”

“Yes, the Dalish have their own Gods, don’t they?” Josephine comments. 

“Correct,” Dickface notes, “though I’m not Dalish.”

“You look plenty Dalish to me,” Cassandra enunciates. “Tell me then, if you aren’t Dalish, what are you?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Dickface leans back to gesture to herself wearing what little of her stolen Dalish armour made it out of their attempt to seal the breach. “I’m a Dwarf.”

“Ugh,” Cassandra throws her hands up in disgust but refrains from slamming them on the table once again.

“You have no clan then,” Cullen says, taking a step back from the table to lean against the nearby wall.

Dickface sighs again. Of all the stupid fucking things for them to get caught up on… Deacon squeezes her thigh under the table, as she reaches for her yet untouched glass of wine, if only to have something to do with her hands. “Close enough to the truth that I wouldn’t be lying if I said it.” Dickface’s eyes flick over to Cullen’s briefly, and she can see the man trying to use anger to hide his amusement. He’s only marginally successful.

“It does make properly declaring you a member of the Inquisition a touch difficult, though I can understand not wanting to associate with unfortunate heraldry…" Josephine trails off.

"It's not the heraldry she's concerned about," Deacon murmurs, with a light Rivaini accent. And while Dickface knows damn well that's not what the man actually sounds like, she can't deny he fakes it impeccably.

"At least give us a name," Cassandra snaps. "Something to call you by."

"Names mean things, Seeker Cassandra, as do titles. I have none that it would be appropriate to answer to, in this circumstance," Dickface responds. 

"What do people call you then?" Cullen asks.

"They usually don't," Dickface pretends to take a sip of the wine.

"I take it," Leliana speaks slowly, breaking into the conversation for the first time, "that what Deacon referred to you as earlier, Litasa, wasn't a name then."

Deacon hisses as Dickface pinches him under the table. 

"It is not," Dickface confirms, "it's a nickname based on a title given to me when the two of us worked together. And it's the sort of work that would throw a lot of dirt onto the good name of this new Inquisition, so it's probably best that word not be spread around. Right Deacon?" Dickface glares at the man in question.

Deacon, completely unphased, picks something out from under a fingernail. "Sure thing, Lita," he cheekily winks. Dickface rolls her eyes.

"That doesn't change the fact that you'll need something to respond to during your stay here," Cullen states. 

"I answer to Herald, don't I? But I suppose you're correct. Politically speaking, I'm going to have to have some sort of name to act behind. Someone plausible, yet relatively unknown. Deacon can help you," Dickface gestures to Leliana and Josephine, "set something like that up. He's well acquainted with my capabilities." There's a subtle order in her voice, and Deacon's eyes flit over to hers quickly before darting away again. Message received.

"And that's," Cassandra splutters incredulously, "you'd have us give you a new identity rather than display your own?"

"Well we've already given her the title of Herald," Leliana comments. "Any personal requests, or are Josephine and I free to arrange things as we see fit?"

"My personal request is that you include Deacon in that conversation. But in general, I'm a mage, not Dalish, and anyone who is Dalish or knows a great deal about them is going to know that by taking a single look at me. And I'd really rather not be punched in the face for being a clan imposter. Again."

Josephine and Cassandra seem taken aback by this, while Cullen and Deacon share an amused look. Leliana stares at Dickface, as if trying to find some lie in her words.

"Very well," the Spymaster finally states. 

"Now that that's taken care of," Dickface stands up from the table, abandoning the wineglass, "is there any place here to get some food? I haven't eaten since the conclave."

Deacon shakes his head in amusement, while everyone else seems various degrees of shocked or concerned. 

"Right," Cassandra takes charge. "If you'll follow me, Herald, I'll take you to the kitchens."

"Don't leave Haven without me!" Deacon shouts to the two retreating women.

"I make no promises!" Dickface shouts back.

* * *

"So what's the deal with you and the tag-along?" Varric isn't quite sitting at the table, rather leaning next to where she's eating. Cassandra, a few seats away and nose deep in papers seems to perk up, but then schools her expression. Interesting.

"What, you mean Deacon? He's far more of a sidekick than a tag-along," Dickface muses.

"Alright," Varric chuckles, "what's the story of you and the sidekick then."

"What's even to say there is a story? Maybe we're just perfect strangers."

"And I'm the Prince-Consort of Ferelden. Listen, you might not know this, what with spending a fair amount of time unconscious, but he did not take that whole ‘you collapsing’ thing very well. Healers wouldn’t let anyone in to see you, and he was incensed to the point I almost thought he’d come to blows with our Seeker,” Varric shoots a thumb out towards Cassandra, who is almost certainly just pretending to read at this point. 

“Ah.” Dickface takes a moment to process this. Deacon’s remained close since she woke, but this kind of attachment wasn’t something she expected from him. “You are correct in that I hadn’t known that.”

“And not that it’s any of my business, but I may or may not have a bet with Josephine about whether the two of you are secret lovers.”

Dickface snorts. “Deacon isn’t interested in women.”

“Uh-huh,” Varric seems unconvinced. 

“I…” Dickface hesitates. “If you must know, once upon a time the two of us were coworkers. Things got dicey, and I had to leave in a way that presuming me dead was the sensible option. That I’m still standing after everything,” she deliberately turns her palm over so that the green scar is visible, “well I imagine that it’s remarkable to him.”

“Well... Shit.”

“It’s an emotional bond, but we’re not secret lovers,” Dickface restates, and tries not to snicker as Cassandra visibly deflates. 

“Eh, I didn’t need the coin anyway,” Varric sighs. “And I suppose there’s no chance of you actually telling me what you and the kid actually _did_ together is there.”

“He’s got like, 5 years on me, Varric. If he’s a kid, what does that make me?” Varric hesitates for a moment, giving her face a closer look. “I’ll tell you what,” Dickface continues, “you keep me apprised of the betting pools regarding me and mine, and I’ll let you know which guesses are getting close and which are wildly incorrect.”

Varric chuckles, but nods his head slowly. “You’re an odd one, I’ll grant you that. But I look forward to working with you.”

Dickface smiles and goes back to her meal, as the dwarf walks away.

“You should not encourage him,” Cassandra says, after a moment. 

“Hey, if we all die to demons then it won’t really matter. Plus, Deacon’s got good money on no one figuring it out, and I aim to prove him wrong.”

Cassandra scoffs, but there’s an amused hint under it this time. “You should finish your food. Haven is quite large, and I’d rather you know your way around sooner rather than later.”

“As you will, Seeker.”

The food might not be well spiced, but the ingredients are fresh and it is at least still hot. After returning the used dishes to the kitchen because she isn’t a heathen, Cassandra takes her on a quick tour of the place. The Seeker’s bluntness isn’t completely uncharming, Dickface eventually decides. She’ll want to have a closer look at the foundation for the walls at some point, but that seems a touch rude given how new she is to the place. 

She ends up watching Cullen running training drills for a little while. There’s no proper standards for armour, so some of it is excellent, the repurposed Templar stuff mostly as some of these troops surely followed Cullen here, but the large bulk of it is piecemeal and functional at best. The range of sword skills varies wildly as well, but the strength of training does not. Cullen emphasises formation, teamwork, and above all else, footwork, and the corrections he shouts out are all accurate. Whoever chose him for Commander made a good decision. 

Still their numbers are small. Almost all the archers have been claimed by the scouts, and while they’re certainly needed there more, having some integrated with and training alongside the infantry is never a bad thing. There are precious few mages as well, and while tonics and potions can do a lot, that means they have precious few healers. 

They’re making do. But that won’t be enough for whatever lies ahead. 

With that sobering thought, Dickface heads back to her room where the supplies she’d been wearing at the conclave have been placed. 

The pack she retrieves is mostly filled with dried herbs for potion making, but it’s main purpose is to hide the Lyrium shards within. She’s still got 4, which should be enough for today’s plans, at least.

She could, Dickface supposes as she starts a perimeter sweep, use фэдама to set wards, rather than Lyrium, but that would require far more energy and be less sturdy overall. Besides, it isn’t as though she has trouble getting a hold of the stuff.

Solas finds her in the middle of sketching out the rune outlines for the third ward. Between these three, she’ll be able to pull up decent cover to the gates, should it come to it. He waits for a long moment, just out of her way, watching intently before speaking up.

“Manually triggered wards?”

Dickface sighs in annoyance, getting ready to explain how having predetermined triggers doesn’t make anything safer if you don’t know what’s coming, but then Solas continues, “My apologies. You seemed so quick to grab a sword, I hadn’t realised you were a mage.”

“That’s happened a lot,” Dickface finishes the rough outline with a flourish, then picks up a smaller stick to add in a few details. “Maybe I should start carrying a staff to avoid confusion. Even though I never use the things.”

“You channel magic through your sword then?” Solas sounds intrigued, “Unusual, but doable. I had no idea the Dalish taught such things.”

“I wouldn’t know, as I’m not Dalish,” Dickface finishes the last few details, then fetches a Lyrium crystal from her bag. “And I mostly just use the sword as a sword.” 

Solas remains quiet as she places the Lyrium in the center of the glyph. She can’t sing the song out loud with the company, but the melody of the spell echoes in her bones and through her slowly moving arms, and the two of them watch as the shard slowly burrows underground, fuel for the now prepared spell. Coming out of the song trance, Dickface uses the leafy end of her large stick to erase the small marks she’d left in the dirt. 

The ward hums slightly, when she listens for it.

“You cast entirely freehand then?” Solas comments. “Many would find that dangerous.”

“Many would find your dream walking dangerous as well. I prefer to judge skill, rather than presumed risk.”

“There is wisdom in that,” Solas agrees, acknowledging her subtle dig. “Are you finished with the wards, or is there more to do?”

“Done with these wards, but there is one other thing I’d like to do.”

“Oh?”

Dickface smiles. “There’s an underground passage that leads under one of the back walls and up the mountains a ways. I’d like to make sure it doesn’t collapse, and take a portion of the wall with it.”

"Would you allow me to accompany you then? I'd be interested in seeing what else you can accomplish."

It's not something Dickface is super enthusiastic about, but refusing would make it look like she has something to hide. Plus, she hasn't spent enough time with the other mage to get a decent read on him. 

"Sure," she says, picking up her pack and dusting a few leaves off of it, before walking further around Haven, “you’re free to come along.”

"Very well," face serene, there's a smile in Solas' voice.

If she knows mages, then he's looking for something to critique her over, most likely poor form, to prove his own prowess and skill.

Dickface smirks. He isn't going to find any.

* * *

It isn't until late in the evening that Dickface is able to get some time alone with Deacon. 

"That was fast," she comments idly as Deacon climbs in the window to the quarters she's been assigned. "The perimeter that secure or did you just‒"

"Shut up," Deacon cuts her off. "Just… stand up for a second?"

"Deacon?" Dickface complies, uncertain, but the man sounds close to tears and yet… She's completely frozen when Deacon practically dives across the room to pull her into a hug. Not a short quick hug either. One that's forcefull and desperate and painfully real.

It's the most physical contact she's had in months. 

"It's okay," Deacon whispers, sorrow and desperation and relief in his voice as he rocks the two of them back and forth. "It's okay. You're here. You're alive. You're still here and alive and I've got you." Deacon's crying now, hot tears landing on her shoulder as he clings to her, and it's only then that Dickface feels something inside her break as well.

"It's okay," she murmurs, as she finally returns the hug, clinging as tightly to him as he is to her. "It's okay. I'm here. You've got me." And Deacon just sobs harder and clings tighter and Dickface has been so lonely for so long… she's crying too. 

They break themselves apart that night, shattering into tiny little pieces, to reform again as a unified whole. It could be minutes that they stand there, desperately clinging to each other as the whole world slides away. It could be hours. Regardless, eventually the two feel stable enough to take a step back, though not too far. 

There's a small table in the corner of the room with two chairs. They end up sitting there, hands clasped together across the table, and it's only then that Dickface thinks to cast a noise cancelling spell. Whoops. 

"Sorry about that," Deacon chuckles, using his free hand to wipe a stray tear off his face. 

"Don't apologise. You needed that. I… We needed that." She brushes her free hand against the stubble on his cheek, and Deacon let's a few more tears fall as he grabs that hand and holds it against his face for a long moment. 

"Right," he eventually clears his throat. "Let's start with the basics. I assume you'll be staying here to help with this whole breach thing?"

It hadn't even occurred to her to question such a thing. "I will," Dickface states, with surprising conviction. 

"Then I'll be staying too," Deacon responds, just as firmly. 

"What about‒"

"I'm cutting ties," Deacon interrupts. "They got one last report from me, that I'd found you and was sticking close, but that's it. If you want me to swear fealty to you, to this... Inquisition, I will."

"Deacon…" Dickface can feel herself starting to tear up again, "you don't have to do that. You have a life away from all this that you can go back to once this is all done."

"And what happens to you, then?" Deacon snaps. "Tell me you haven't spent these past years alone suffering in silence. Tell me that isn’t the exact same life you'd slink back to if there wasn't something that demanded your attention!"

Dickface swallows hard, and looks down at the table. 

"You can't, can you." Deacon sighs, the hand that’s gripping hers squeezing harder, and running his other through his hair. "I abandoned you once, because there was literally no other choice. You cannot ask me to do that again."

There's a welling swell of guilt and pain just roiling in Dickface's chest, but she does her best to keep the worst of it off her face. 

"Okay," she whispers. "Okay. Цусалчох / ыджуёт."

They end up curled together on the bed, Deacon's head on her chest, close enough that she knows he's listening to her heartbeat. It's sad but also sweet, and mostly she's just happy to relax. To have someone she can trust.

"Josephine's weird," Deacon says, when recounting his day. "She knows the court and handles politics with the grace of someone born to it, yet also seems to be a genuinely good person?" He allows a fair amount of bafflement to slip into his tone.

"How exploitable are we talking?" Dickface responds. 

"Up until now she was the Antivan ambassador to Orlais."

Dickface whistles, impressed.

"Yeah, that was my thought too," Deacon chuckles.

"And Leliana?" Dickface asks.

"Best damn Chantry spy I've ever met."

"Chantry spies are shit, so that still leaves a wide range."

"She's good," Deacon acknowledges, "maybe even track me down good. Though she doesn't stand a chance trying to get anything on you."

"You worried?"

"Not especially," Deacon slips into an Antivan accent, "I've got enough tricks to make finding anything real absolutely infuriating."

Dickface laughs. "So you're playing that game, are you?"

"Can you blame me? You've already got one of yours going."

"I wouldn't," Dickface grouses, "if they didn't assume I was Dalish."

"Lita, you put effort into looking Dalish. You cannot tell me watching people fall for it isn't at least slightly funny."

A small smirk creeps up Dickface's lips. "You have no proof." She can't see it, but she knows Deacon's rolling his eyes. "There was already a betting pool on us, you know?"

"Really?" Deacon asks, "about what?"

"Whether you and I were secret lovers."

Deacon sighs. "There are worse things that could be assumed about us."

"Seriously? Have your stances on women changed since we last met? Cause I assumed the assumption would bother you."

"No, my stances on women haven't particularly changed. But it's another part of the game. And if people are interested enough to be betting on it already, then it's exploitable."

There's something strange going on under Deacon's voice, but Dickface decides to leave it alone for now. 

"Did you and the council decide on a new name for me yet?" She asks instead. 

"Sort of. And you're going to hate it."

Dickface groans. "Okay, hit me with it."

"They want to find you a clan."

"... They **_what_ **?!"

"Not like that," Deacon reassures. "Leliana has contact with a group that's got close enough ties to local humans that they'd find our resources to be useful. Pay them enough, and when pressed they'll say you were a member of their clan that was kicked out. Leliana wanted to spin it as 'you tried to spread the faith of Andraste to the clan' but even ignoring the fact that a clan wouldn't kick you out for that…"

"I wouldn't go for it," Dickface completes. "So what's the story instead?"

"You killed some Templars to save a shemlan, and the clan disassociated with you for fear of retaliation."

"Hmm. That's… workable. Shemlan mage?"

"That'll be the common assumption."

"And if the clan won't go for it?"

"Then you're a city elf from a place whose accent you can do."

"Not going with escaped slave again?" Dickface teases. 

"I floated it, but Josephine was worried about displaying ties to Tevinter."

"Expected, but disappointing."

"Hey if that's what you want to play, we can march right up there and change it."

"No it's…" Dickface sighs. "It's better to remain as unassuming as possible for all this, I think."

"If you say so," Deacon says, unconvinced.

"Thoughts on everyone else so far?"

"Varric's a liar and my favourite, Cullen's having a mid life crisis, and so far Cassandra's been nothing but rage, so it's hard to say."

None of those are wrong, but it's not what Dickface is looking to hear.

"What about Solas?"

"Hmm. He's the bald elf, right? He just sort of fades into the background."

"And that doesn't strike you as odd?"

Deacon freezes, then sits up sharply. "Fuck. He a blood mage?"

"Not as far as I can tell."

"What power level are we talking?"

"If you can pay attention to him tomorrow, then he's skilled but handleable."

"And if I can't?" Deacon hisses.

"Then we have a problem," Dickface acknowledges. 

"Well… poop."

"Deacon… how long has it been since you've slept?"

Deacon opens his mouth to answer and then stops, seemingly realising he won't be able to lie well enough to fool his questioner. "Since the Conclave," he reluctantly answers. "So a couple days. You've been in and out of consciousness a lot."

"You want to sleep here?" Dickface gestures to the bed beside her, where Deacon has been laying for a while. 

Deacon looks exceptionally grateful. "Yes please," he whispers.

Dickface rolls her eyes good-naturedly. "Alright then you. Come here." And with a wave of her hand the candles in the room get doused, and the curtains drawn across the windows. 

"You need to shave," Dickface tells Deacon when his stubble rubs against her shoulder. 

"I'm actually thinking about growing it out," Deacon murmurs.

"Well if it scratches more than this, I'm shaving it off for you."

"That's fair," Deacon mumbles, curling around her and falling into sleep.

Dickface lays awake for a while longer, listening as a guard rotation happens. The mark on her hand doesn't hurt, but it does pulse with unknown energy that pulls on her. Yanks her in one direction, in a rhythm but not a consistent one, and she finds herself instinctively pushing back. A push, and then a push further, and then she's pulling it in.

And without even thinking about it, she's started up with that childhood fidget once again.

_Push and pull._

_Push and pull._

_Push and pull._

It's that regular pattern, rather than the erratic sparks of the mark, that eventually lulls her to sleep.

* * *

Deacon is gone by the time morning brings a runner to her door to invite her to breakfast. Cullen meets her on the way there, falling into step just slightly behind her. 

“How are things looking out there?” Dickface asks.

“Reports of small rifts are starting to pour in, but it’s still too early to get a real grasp of what’s going on. Some of those rifts are close by. Cassandra,” Cullen stresses the name, “would have you ride out and start the process of closing them.”

“And you don’t agree?”

“Leliana wants to wait for your cover story. And Solas expressed concern over your health. The mark is now stabilised, but it apparently put quite the stress on your body.”

“Hm,” Dickface frowns, flexing her hand as the two of them walk into the dining hall. She doesn’t feel weaker, but then again she doesn’t usually fall unconscious, so maybe a test of ability would be best before she throws herself against this new challenge.

The hall, though full of people, falls completely silent when she enters. Many are staring openly at her, while others are staring while pretending not to, and some deliberately make no eye contact at all. Yet everyone is pointedly aware of her presence. Dickface gives the room a small yet polite curtsey, before heading over to where Cassandra, Varric, Josephine, and an admittedly slightly further Solas are all eating. 

“Spar with me,” Dickface says, when she sits down in front of Cassandra. 

“Excuse me?” Cassandra seems mostly confused.

“The Seekers of Truth are renowned, and some of that is for their fighting ability, is it not? I’d like to see one in action.”

“I am uncertain what there is to gain from sparring with a mage.”

“I’ll keep my magic entirely out of it,” Dickface assures. “Just your blade, against mine.”

“You sure about that, Herald?” Varric chimes in. “Sure you’ve demonstrated that you know which end of a sword points up well enough, but you might be better off practicing lighting things on fire.”

Dickface shrugs and picks up a bread roll. “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Be that as it may,” Josephine interjects, “you may want to hold off until you’re sure your strength has come back, as I’m sure Solas can attest to.”

“On the contrary,” the man sounds casual, but there’s something dark in his eyes, “I rather think a friendly spar would be an ideal way to test our Herald’s strength. Though a warmup of some sorts would be preferred.”

“Very well,” Cassandra sighs. “If nothing else, we’ll learn whether putting a sword in your hands is sensible.”

Dickface hides her smirk with a mouthful of bread.

* * *

Varric is almost worried that Deacon is going to miss the spar, but the man seems to emerge from the shadows just as Cullen is shouting out the rules to the bout. There’s a cheer that goes out, as many of the troops watch with interest. The Herald does not use a shield, so Cassandra opts to forgo hers as well. The Seeker stands sharp and ready, while the Herald’s stance is far more relaxed, as she swings the dulled blade a few times, testing the weight. 

“Took you long enough,” Varric calls, and is shushed from a few in the nearby crowd.

“As if I’d miss this,” Deacon drawls, in a Fereldan accent that nearly makes Varric do a double take. Cullen calls go, and the two women start circling each other.

“What do you say,” Varric not quite whispers, “10 silvers says your girl holds her own, but the Seeker eventually strikes her down.”

“She’s not _my_ anything,” Deacon comments idly, as the swords start to clash. Varric spares a look to the human’s face, but his eyes are focused solidly on the fight. Varric will be the first to admit he doesn’t really know the intricate ins and outs of a swordfight. There’s some back and forth, neither side gaining or losing ground. But Varric knows the Seeker well enough to know she’s holding back.

“And no,” Deacon says after a moment, “I won’t take that bet.”

“What? You’ve no faith in our Herald?”

Deacon lets out a dry chuckle. “I’ve the utmost faith in Lita’s abilities. But this isn’t a real fight.”

“Seems real enough,” Varric comments, as Cassandra winds up for a swing that the elf neatly dodges, before retaliating.

“She’s learning,” Solas says from Varric’s other side, appearing far more suddenly than Deacon did. “Testing the Seeker’s abilities, more than her own.”

“Aye,” Deacon responds. “She’ll let the Seeker take this fight.”

The Herald is disarmed a few minutes later, not a hit on her but an overenthusiastic parry that left her blade sailing from her hands and into a nearby snowpile. Varric thinks he saw the moment she decided to let that strike disarm her rather than continue the fight, but that could just be bias on his part. Oh who is he kidding, it’s absolutely bias and also true.

A hush goes through the troops as they wonder what this can mean, but the Herald simply laughs, and with a wave of her hand the snowpile blows into the air, spraying a great deal of the crowd with snow while tossing the blade back towards her own hand.

She catches it easily. “Perhaps I should stick to a staff for now!” She calls to the surrounding crew, and while there’s a near palpable sigh of relief, Varric can see some coin change hands. “But thanks for sticking around to watch me, instead of doing the training drills Cullen asked you to. I’m sure he’s very pleased.”

“Thank you,” Cullen acknowledges, as the bulk of the gathered people groan. The crowd begins to disperse as Varric leads their trio over towards the contestants. 

“You fight well,” Cassandra says, only slightly awkwardly, “considering the circumstances, I am impressed.”

“And your hand?” Solas interjects, “no numbness or unusual sensitivity?”

“Physically no. The magic from it spasms sometimes, in a manner I’ve yet to find a pattern to. Compensating for it has proven… annoying, but not difficult.”

And that’s.... yet another reason Varric is very happy not being a mage. Both Cassandra and Cullen frown with the news, while Solas simply nods, but Varric is more concerned with the reaction of Deacon who’s nearly turned to stone with tension. There’s something in his eyes when they make contact with the Herald’s, but the two of them both turn to Solas when he speaks.

“If I might examine it again, I’ll see what can be done.”

“Alright,” the Herald responds, with a calmness Varric has to assume is fake. Deacon is still incredibly tense, but he’s pivoted slightly so he’s at the Herald’s shoulder rather than Varric’s, and he’s doing a poor job of not looking like he’s glaring Solas down. “Deacon,” there’s a note of warning in the Herald’s voice, “temaus.”

Deacon gives a nod of agreement, and seems to forcibly settle himself into a more relaxed stance. It’s hard to say whether that’s a code word, or something in another language as the phrase is so short, but no one in their small gathering seems to recognise it.

“Perhaps you should fight Cassandra,” the Herald comments idly to Deacon, “Make sure your skills haven’t gotten rusty.”

And just like that, it's as if the strange anger on the man's face was blown away. There’s a slight smirk on his face as he turns to the Seeker. 

“What say you? I’m more rogue than proper swordfighter, but I’m quick enough on my feet to at least pose a challenge to such a warrior as yourself.” 

From guard dog to master flirt with only a few words, Varric notes, and it works given the light blush that appears across Cassandra’s cheeks. 

“Very well,” Cassandra responds, “but you’ll only have yourself to blame, if you get hurt.”

“I’ll take those chances,” Deacon smiles.

Cullen drifts off to go start the training of the day, while Solas leads the Herald to someplace less noisy. Varric himself takes a few steps back to watch as Deacon squares off with the Seeker. Cassandra does pick up her shield this time, when Deacon pulls out his proper weapons. Two wickedly long knives that are still a bit too small to be called real swords come from where he keeps them strapped to his thighs. Cassandra raises an eyebrow, but otherwise makes no comment. 

There’s no one to call go, but there’s no need to this time either. Deacon doesn’t hesitate, and neither does Cassandra. And this time, Cassandra isn’t keeping her swings light. 

Deacon was right when he said he was light on his feet. He doesn’t get any solid hits on the Seeker, but he doesn’t stay still long enough for her to hit him either. He dodges and rolls around her, giggling whenever she makes a noise of frustration.

“I thought you wanted to fight,” she eventually growls, when he dodges one too many times. 

Deacon sighs. “Very well.”

There’s a short real clash of blades and then Cassandra freezes. It takes a moment for Varric to realise what happened, but Deacon’s got one of his knives past Cassandra’s shield and pointed up just under her ribs. 

“You cheat,” Cassandra growls as she shoves Deacon away from her. The man simply throws his head back and cackles. 

“Better a scoundrel than a dead man, Lady Seeker,” Deacon purrs while dusting off his pants. He then bows slightly to the both of them, before heading off in the same direction Solas and the Herald went.

“He’s got a point, you know,” Varric comments as Cassandra drops her shield in frustration.

“Shut up, Dwarf.”

* * *

In the days it takes to hear back from whichever clan Leliana contacted there never is a consensus over whether she should or should not be heading out there just yet, so Dickface simply has Deacon run interference while she flags down one of the head scouts as they're stopping in at the keep with a restock of supplies.

Scout Harding is perfectly happy to point out a rift or two that can be dealt with without walking past someone who wants introductions to the Herald, and is even helpful enough to point out some routes on maps. 

Cassandra, Varric, and Solas all insist on coming along, and none of them seem particularly surprised by Deacon's presence. 

It's a good trip, all things considered, and isn’t so long that they are’t back at Haven before nightfall. They kill some bandits on the way to the rift, which is easy enough to seal now that Dickface knows how, and on the way back they run into a possessed bear, which is, Deacon confirms, the most annoying thing he's ever had to stab.

Cassandra isn't used to protecting backline fighters, Dickface notes, as both she and Deacon have to step in once or twice to get someone off Varric's ass. Not that the dwarf seems incapable of handling himself, but it's clear within seconds he fights better from a distance. 

But Dickface really only has eyes for Solas. It's easy enough for her to play mellow in a group like this, to allow Deacon or Varric to lead conversation and simply watch how the others react. But more importantly, it's to see him fight. 

And she learns several things over their short excursion.

Solas is Elvhen trained, and properly too, rather than any of the Dalish permutations. He’s a powerful mage, but plays as average, mostly by spell choice. But any mage fighting at their own skill level will show at least some signs of mana drain, which Solas pointedly does not do.

His talks of the fade suggest passion and intelligence. This intelligence is probably the main source for his arrogance but, Dickface supposes, it’s not as if there are many other experts in his field he could debate with. Try as he might, the veneer of humbleness just slides off him.

To put it plainly, Solas is not an idiot. Which is why it baffles Dickface that the man thinks his obviously paper thin, boat sinking under its own weight, filled with more holes and obvious contradictions than the Chant of Light, completely useless cover story could even manage to fool anybody. Except for apparently the Inquisition Spymaster. And Cassandra, a Seeker of Truth. And, at least for a short time, Deacon.

And that’s the real issue. He doesn’t bother to fake mana drain or create a better cover story because he’s relying on some form of magic to obscure himself from the minds of those around him. Not much, the effect is subtle, but enough that he doesn't overly raise suspicions.

Messing with minds is typically the territory of вёдала, and while Solas’ stance on the matter seems surprisingly open, Dickface has seen no signs that he was lying when he said he didn’t practice it. 

And usually the way Dickface would figure out if someone was lying through their teeth about blood magic would be to listen to them. Which of course isn’t the easiest thing to do while out on an excursion to kill demons and possessed bears.

Which is how she ends up here, perching on the roof of a hut a little ways away from where Solas is, with her own _Look-Not-At-Me_ spell up for extra insurance, trying to get close enough so she can just sit and listen. And yet, despite being far closer than she usually has to be to get such a reading, he still fades into the background. It’s almost impossible to determine what magic is his, whether aura or active cast, and what’s simply ambient energy which can be found anywhere.

“While I do not mind the attention, da’lan, perhaps an answer to your question would come more readily if you came down and asked,” Solas interrupts her thoughts, and Dickface startles enough that she has to dig her heels in to avoid sliding off the roof. 

There are two ways someone could see through _Look-Not-At-Me_ , knowledge and power. Knowledge, in this case would mean knowledge of вёдала, which would imply that Solas was lying and lying well. Unlikely, given his cover story and general demeanor, meaning...

_Oh fuck._

Dickface lets her heels go loose and turns the slide into a roll at the last minute, landing comfortably on her feet a short distance from the other elf. “Sorry Hahren,” she responds with a chipperness she most certainly doesn’t feel. It’s a bit of a gamble, using Elvhen given both her and Solas’ rocky relationships with other elves, but the indulgent smile he gives her says it was enough to smooth over the weirdness of being watched from a roof.

It doesn’t have to be failure if it provides an opportunity, Dickface reminds herself as she continues, “I was just wondering, given that you’d spent so much time wandering the Fade, did you, um..” she allows herself to trail off, and digs a foot into the dirt. “Did you see anything of Arlathan?” she finally blurts. “You know, before it fell. Could you tell me what it was like?”

She makes sure not to have direct eye contact, body language reinforcing the awkwardness she’s trying to project, but she still sees him reel as if physically hit. He recovers quickly, settling into a blank mask thick with years of experience, but those first few moments tells her all she needs to know.

Solas has indeed seen Arlathan in the fade, and in person, though that isn’t what he says. He rambles about several great works of architecture, and Dickface makes sure to smile and nod in all the correct places, seemingly entranced.

It’s all she can do to hide the fear.

Solas isn’t an ancient elf that dug his way out of the wood works to help with a sudden explosion of demons.

He’s a fucking Evanuris.

_Шех._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  **Ившидагъядн (Evsheedagyadn)**  
>  Фэдама ( _fedama_ ): magic from the fade  
> Цусалчох / ыджуёт ( _tsusalchokh / yezhula_ ): I accept your promise  
> Вёдала ( _vyodala_ ): magic from the body, commonly assumed to be blood magic  
> Шех ( _shyekh_ ): shit
> 
>  **Tevene**  
>  _Temaus_ : calm, peace, or at ease
> 
> Hey! Thanks for sticking around. I've got the next few chapters written and am in the editing phase, but if you want to know what's up sooner or just scream at me, this story is looking for Beta Readers. I'm RosemaryBagels on Tumblr, Reddit, and I'm RosemaryBagels#9705 on Discord so hmu if you're interested. Love to see you at the next one.


	2. Ellana Lavellan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Previously on DWoof:**  
>  Dickface makes sure to smile and nod in all the correct places, as it’s all she can do to hide the fear.
> 
> Solas isn’t an ancient elf that dug his way out of the wood works to help with a sudden explosion of demons. He’s a fucking Evanuris.
> 
> _Shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took longer than I wanted an I'm sorry about that. I had non-Covid related health issues come up, but everything's fine now.
> 
> A note on accents! I'm aware that Bioware goes uniform except when they don't (Nevarran, Antivan, DAI Dalish ect), so we're going to fill in some stuff. Fereldan accents I imagine to be kind of American - though which part is left up to you. Rolling with Starkhaven being a bit Scottish, I imagine other Marcher cities take various unused UK dialects, so Wycome (where Vivienne is from) is Upper Class British like she is, while Markham (where 'Blackwall' is from) is more Cockney. In future, please imagine Blackwall with a Cockney accent. Rivain I imagine to be more Romani, and while making the Vints Italian would be COMICAL, I can't do that to poor Fenris, so peg that wherever you like (except for Russian which will come up later). As for the Anderfels... Do me a favour and check out the Newfoundland accent.

* * *

“As important as that word sounds,” Deacon begins, “you’re going to have to tell me what it means in this context.”

They’re standing in the Fade. Or rather, dreaming. Dickface has done the place up to look like the safehouse along the Tevinter coastline they’d stayed in while avoiding a particularly persistent Carta assassin, though the window opens to brackish waters and Fadewild trees.

It’s a gambit, Dickface knows, sharing this information in a place Solas knows so much better than herself. It’s her dream, which gives her some control, but given his clear passion for the subject, it’s entirely possible he knows a way past any defenses she might set. But given how easily he saw through her cloak, she has little faith that any wards put up outside a dream would hold against him. They might not even register.

The real question is, would Solas suspect anyone of having secret Fade meetings about him? Dickface has her money on no.

“Technically it just means Mage Leader, but in useful terms it’s the overarching Dalish pantheon. Meaning Creators, Forgotten Ones, and also Fen’Harel. And yes, they all existed, but no they aren’t what we in the current age would consider a god. But they are very old, and they are very powerful.”

“Ah,” Deacon says, leaning against one of the dream walls where the paint is slowly peeling, “well shit. Guess that answers the power level question. What’s he doing here though?”

“It’s technically possible that he just wants to help seal the Breach,” Dickface shrugs, “given that he basically saved my life with the whole ‘stabalising the mark’ thing.”

“Right,” Deacon sounds as unconvinced as she feels. 

“I’d have better luck assessing motive and threat level if I knew which Evanuris he was,” Dickface acknowledges. 

“How many of them are there?”

“14. I think.”

“Alright,” Deacon heads over to a desk now stacked with paper and ink, “walk me through them.”

“There’s a Dalish tale,” she begins, “that says Fen’Harel sealed the Creators in the heavens and the Forgotten Ones in the abyss, afterwhich Elvhen society collapsed. Dalish myth isn’t particularly known for historical accuracy but,” Dickface cautiously intones, “There are a few scattered records that corroborate the lot of them just vanishing one day.”

Deacon nods, scribbling a short note. "So if it's true…"

"So if it's true and whatever doors were locked remained that way, then we're looking at Fen'Harel. That's actually a pretty good guess as the stories about him tend to emphasise that he's a trickster, and the whole faking being mortal thing is the setup for a great many jokes."

"And if it's not true?"

"Then anyone's fair game." Dickface sighs. "I'd like to say we could cross all the women off the list of suspects but… maybe when you've lived as long as they have gender becomes meaningless, or a mask to be worn for periods of time. Or maybe the Dalish got it wrong."

"So… most likely Fen'Harel, but you can't rule anyone out."

"Basically," she groans.

"What _do_ the records say about them?" he asks. 

"Mostly that they were self absorbed pompous assholes. Think Magister, but with Orleasian fashion taste."

"Eugh," Deacon shudders.

"Exactly. And the way Solas dresses… I can’t reconcile the two.”

“Be that as it may,” Deacon puts the paper aside, “let’s assume he’s hostile. What exactly can we do?”

Dickface sighs. “Exposure. Damage control.” It's telling that those are the first few things she says.

“So prepare evac plans,” Deacon concludes. “And in a direct fight? Could you take him?”

Dickface chuckles wetly, “Deacon, I’m still…” she vaguely waves a hand while trying to find the words. “Getting everything back,” is what she eventually settles on. “In a direct fight? Right now? Not a chance. Not without…” she trails off, and Deacon looks awkwardly at the floor. They both know what the end of that sentence is.

“Any plans to get it back?”

“Not as of yet. But I want to give you юзъан training, just in case.”

Deacon’s face goes slack with fear. “Litasa please,” he mutters weakly, “you don’t have to‒”

"I don't _have_ to do anything,” Dickface growls.

"Oh," Deacon’s voice gets darker as anger filters in, "I'm glad we're on the same page then."

"Indeed."

"Then why the fuck are you going to make me do it anyway?"

“Because it isn’t safe!” Dickface explodes, her voice cracking. “It’s a risk enough anyway and I can’t do it if... I can’t do it if…” She rubs a hand over her eyes flinching at the forming tears. “It has to be safe,” she whispers. "I have to be safe."

“Then tell me what I have to do,” Deacon’s voice is rough yet steady, and his eyes are kind when Dickface can finally drag her gaze away from her own twitching hands. 

“Really? Just like that?”

“Tell me,” Deacon emphasises, “what I have to do.”

“It’ll be a bit of combat training. Some alchemy. A bit of wacky Lyrium stuff.”

“Done.”

“And a lot more nights like this, spent in dream meetings rather than actual rest. Which I know you hate.”

“Oh _Litasa_ ,” Deacon croons the nickname like it’s a term of endearment, “If a night is spent with one so beautiful as you, I fail to see how it could be anything but delightful.”

“Shut up,” Dickface lightly shoves his shoulder, but there’s a weak smile on her face, tension successfully broken.

Deacon sighs, and reaches out, grabbing both her hands within his own. “Whatever you need,” the joke has gone from his voice, leaving only sincerity, “I will provide. And if юзъан is what you need then юзъан is what you’ll get.”

“That...” Dickface frowns, “isn’t technically grammatically incorrect, but it still sounds weird. I understand the sentiment. And in the meantime…” Dickface trails off.

“You’re going to poke the bear,” Deacon sounds resigned.

“I’m going to poke the _hell_ out of that bear.”

“Andraste preserve us,” Deacon rolls his eyes.

* * *

“Welcome to the Inquisition, Ellana Lavellan,” Leliana reaches out to shake Dickface’s hand over the table. It’s not an interesting name choice really, not the sort of thing Dickface would have picked, but she’s worked with worse. She’ll drill it with Deacon until it becomes a second skin.

“I understand Deacon briefed you,” Leliana continues, “but there are a few changes requested by the Lavellan clan that we’ll be implementing.”

Requested or demanded, Dickface wonders, but simply nods.

“Nothing too major, they simply reminded us that the Dalish already have a typical reason for exiling mages. The clan First is your cousin, named Idrilla, known for her fiery temper with all except the Halla. You and the clan Second, Mahanon, would have developed magic around the same time. Even as a small child he was known for patience, while you were known for hitting things with sticks, and the Keeper Deshanna, known for being stern but fair, made the executive decision that you would be the one to go. Your father, Athras, saw this as a wise decision, but your mother, Telahmisa, has never quite forgiven the Keeper for it.”

Dickface takes a moment to process all this. “Telahmisa mom, Athras dad, Keeper Deshanna, First Idrilla, and Second Mahanon, correct?” Leliana raises an impressed eyebrow, but nods. “Any siblings?”

“None at the time of your exile,” Leliana notes, “which was 16 years ago. You were eight at the time.”

“Meaning I’m currently 24,” Dickface extrapolates. “Not that far off, incidentally.”

“You do realise this doesn’t mean I’ll stop looking into your true origins,” Leliana adds a hint of darkness into her tone.

“Nor would I expect you too,” Dickface keeps her voice light, leaning in with a conspiratorial smirk, “but I know what you’ll find.”

Leliana frowns, but says nothing.

"Is Idrilla a cousin on my mother's or father's side?"

A slight hesitation before Leliana answers, "I believe father's, but I'll double check."

"How old is Mahanon, compared to me?"

"Mahanon was nine when he presented," no hesitation this time.

"Fair enough."

"We've kept it relatively loose, so that if any of your actual past comes to light, we'll be able to weave it in. There is, however, the matter of Deacon.”

“What about him?”

“I’ve heard rumors,” is all Leliana says. “How long have you known him? How much do you trust him?”

That isn’t really enough for Dickface to tell what stories Deacon has been laying out, or exactly what the Spymaster has found so far, only that she probably hasn’t figured out that it’s a game on Deacon’s part. Well whatever it is, it wouldn’t do to spoil his fun too early…

“To be honest, I don’t know that much about him either, but I trust him implicitly. We’ve got the kind of bond that only jumping out of a moving carriage, off a bridge, and into a swift river together can really establish.”

“I see,” the Spymaster smiles, only moderately insincerely. “Thank you then, for your time.”

“Of course,” Dickface adds a touch of delight to her voice. “If you need me for anything else, do let me know.”

Then she turns tail, and skips out of the office.

* * *

Mother Giselle is a well meaning Chantry lady. Not to say she isn’t also a snake, but Dickface figures that's probably an asset given typical Orlesian circles. The list of names is short, and while Dickface recognises a few, she doesn’t know much. Still, from Josephine’s reaction it’ll be enough to at least get a foot in the door at Val Royeaux. And that’s all they’ll really need.

It feels weird, Dickface supposes, as her small band of companions head into Orlais. 

Cassandra offering to stand and defend her is strange. Varric falling easily into step behind her and Deacon is strange. Solas agreeing to come without question is strange. Dickface had expected to just simply be an asset, a tool for the Inquisition to wield as she’s been so many other times. Instead, they’ve chosen to follow.

Chosen, like Deacon has chosen, to follow _her._

The Revered Mother that calls for her death barks with the surity of the overconfident, and the young Templar at her side gives some evidence as to why. Deacon seems calm, but Dickface knows his hands are on his knives. Solas calls dormant power under his fingers, while Varric’s hands find Bianca’s holster.

“We say this is a False Prophet!” the Mother calls, “The Maker would send no elf in our time of need.”

“Andraste bade all welcome, in her fight against Tevinter,” Dickface calls out to the gathered crowd. “And her Elvhen champion Shartan joined her saying _I cannot rest while people wait in darkness and in fear._ And now here I stand, another Elvhen champion your Chantry would see erased to say that I cannot rest while the sky is raining demons, and that all are bade welcome in our fight to close the Breach.”

The Revered Mother sputters yet continues, but Dickface can already see whispers starting to spring up in the surrounding crowd. Not that quoting Shartan will win over any allies that hate all elves regardless, but those aren’t the sort of allies Dickface is hoping to make.

Any amusement she might feel at the sight of the Revered Mother getting punched evaporates as soon as the man Cassandra identifies as the Lord Seeker opens his mouth. Something is powerfully off about the man, and on any other Templar Dickface would suspect that the Lyrium was catching up to them. Deacon catches her eye as the Templars storm out, and Dickface gives a subtle nod and flick of the wrist to indicate he should follow. Deacon gives a wink, before peeling away and heading after his quarry. 

“How well do you know him?” Dickface murmurs to Cassandra, “because if I were to make a list of suspects, he’d be sitting at the top.”

“Clearly not as well as I thought,” Cassandra grouses in response. “While I’m not certain he’s capable of such a thing, his current actions do not raise him above suspicion, though I hope you know not all in the order are fools enough to follow him.”

“Not all, certainly,” Dickface acknowledges. 

“And so you had Deacon follow them,” Solas comments, and Dickface shares a smile with him as both Cassandra and Varric make a bewildered scan of the nearby crowd, having entirely missed the man’s departure.

Cassandra sighs through her nose, “I assure you, Leliana’s people are more than capable‒”

“Relax, Seeker,” Dickface interjects. “He’ll only be following until he learns where they’re going, then her people are free to take over. But if the Lord Seeker’s a threat, I’d rather know where he is. And speaking of threats…” Dickface trails off as an arrow lands at her feet.

They wait on the outskirts of the city for night to fall to meet with the potential contact. Cassandra paces like she’d very much like to hit something, but Solas and Varric seem content to wait. 

“So, Stranger,” Varric addresses Dickface, finally breaking the silence, “care to tell us how a self proclaimed un-Andrastian elf knows enough of the Chant to quote it like a weapon?”

“The Canticle of Shartan,” Cassandra clarifies, “hasn’t been part of the official Chant for many ages, and the fact that you know it will be concerning to some, yet pleasing to others.” The Seeker counts herself among the second group, Dickface notes with pleasure.

“It was inspired, if nothing else,” Solas comments, with mirth in his voice, “though I’ll admit to some curiosity along with Master Tethras.”

Dickface smiles, and casually runs a hand through her hair. “Spend enough time in the Anderfels, and you basically get the Chant burned into your skull. But yes I did dig out and then memorise the entirety of Shartan’s Canticle, if only to have something to shove in the face of bigoted fucks.”

Varric’s bark of laughter is mostly hidden by Deacon's, as he wanders up to their small camp.

“Of course you did,” Deacon uses a lighter Orlesian accent and leans against a nearby tree. “Templars are headed to Therinfal Redoubt. There are some that question the Lord Seeker, but none ready to do anything about it yet. I’d wait a few weeks.”

Dickface nods, pleased, and tosses him a hunk of bread and some cheese.

“What are you still doing here?” Deacon asks after a moment.

“Meeting a… Contact,” Cassandra says, with distaste.

“I think it’s a Red Jenny!” Dickface chirps, excitedly, before tossing Deacon the letter. “At least I think so. I hope so. I just wanna meet a Jenny.”

Deacon snorts, and skims over the letter before tossing it back. “Well it’s certainly more promising than the last time you ran off looking for the Jennies.”

“You say that like you weren’t right there with me.”

“And you seem to have forgotten what the word ‘bodyguard’ means.”

Dickface has no response to that, other than sticking her tongue out.

“We should re-enter the city from a different gate,” Decon points out, “which means we should probably be heading off now.”

“Fair enough,” Dickface says, and together the five of them disassemble the small camp.

* * *

“Hope you’re not _too elfy_ ,” Sera says, by way of greeting.

“What? No, I’m a Dwarf,” Dickface deadpans.

Sera’s responding cackle most surely woke the neighbours.

* * *

“If we must choose a singular alliance, then there’s absolutely no question.” Dickface is standing in the small room that’s become the main office of the Inquisition. She’s called everyone together for a sort of overall strategy meeting. “Templars require Lyrium, which requires money we don’t currently have. Mages means healers, and most of them can swing a sword as well as half of the recruits out there. I know which I’d rather have to bolster our ranks, and believe me, our ranks need bolstering.”

“You… think we need an army,” Cullen extrapolates. 

“There’s a war going on, and someone bombed the peace talks with a weapon none of us have ever heard of,” Dickface explains like it’s obvious. “That kind of power does not come cheap. Whoever it is behind this, if they don’t have an army they at least have the strength of one. I’d rather not go up against them unprepared. Regardless either alliance would at least double our numbers, and that’s more people than we can currently afford to feed. Now that the Chantry no longer has us outright vilified, our goals should be forming smaller connections and alliances until we’re sure we can support ourselves. We’ll handle the big one once we’re sure it won’t cripple us.”

* * *

It’s amusing, Deacon thinks, how fast they all are to fall in line in his Litasa’s wake. No one’s appointed her leader, nor does she seem to truly realise she’s become theirs, yet they all seemed to relax as soon as she started acting as one.

They snap to attention whenever she enters a room, listen to her advice as if it were an order, and take her actual orders without rankling, despite her odd position.

It’s refreshing to see her respected. 

But it’s awe inspiring to see how she’s blossomed. Her confidence, her smiles, her laughter… Only months ago Deacon would have found the thought of seeing those again completely impossible. Some of it, maybe even most of it, is a mask and a lie, but she’s taken to the Inquisition like it’s her Duty.

And the Inquisition is, undoubtedly, Hers.

Even the Evanuris seems happy enough to follow, though Deacon suspects the flirting lessens that blow. For she has been, even if it’s been subtle, testing the waters before committing to an approach.

In the meantime, she follows through on her pursuit of smaller allies. They fight bandits and raiders and gain the approval of local lords. They fight possessed wolves and come home with horses, close rifts and win over merchants. The stream of refugees into Haven is steady, and Josephine starts getting them to work, mending sheets, repairing armour, grinding herbs for poultices. The Inquisition bars it’s doors to no one, even if their means of contribution seem minimal. 

Litasa heads alone to the Chateau de Ghislain, and returns with the First Enchanter of all people, who is such a snake Deacon can’t quite tell how she walks upright. 

“The mask made of ice was an inspired touch, darling, though I wouldn’t rely on such things for long term use,” is what Vivienne is saying to Litasa when they arrive at Haven. 

“I’d been unsure if an unrecognised player of the game showing up with a mask would have been rude,” Litasa responds with uncertainty that Deacon only knows is fake because he knows her well, “I was equally unsure which masks would be deemed appropriate. It was a last minute decision, as walking into the room barefaced felt awkward.”

“Regardless, my dear, you wore it wonderfully.”

“Aren’t you terrible at ice magic?” Deacon murmurs, with a hint of Tevinter in his voice, once the First Enchanter is swept off by one of Josephine’s agents to be given a tour.

“Comparatively,” Litasa hisses, only mock offended. Her eyes flick over to where several attendants are emptying the First Enchanter’s carriage before returning to Deacon’s face. “Owarai evas,” she orders. Deacon simply nods.

“I have the utmost faith that the Grey Wardens had nothing to do with the death of the Divine,” Litasa says to Blackwall, “but there are many that do not share that sentiment. I’m simply hoping to gather information on their whereabouts to, if nothing else, clear their name.” The two talk for a few minutes, but nothing much is gained, and Litasa simply gives a respectful nod and walks off. There’s a knowing smirk when the man asks for her to wait, and then the lone Warden pledges allegiance to the Inquisition.

“So he’s not actually a Warden?” Deacon asks that night. Litasa’s getting better at creating Fade spaces, and tonight they’re sitting atop a lighthouse overlooking the Antivan coastline.

“Whether he is or is not a Warden isn’t really my decision,” Litasa shrugs, “though I’ve got a contact in Weisshaupt I can ask if it truly matters. What I _can_ say is that he’s never taken the joining.”

“Isn’t that kinda important?”

“A touch yeah.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“I’m not exactly worried,” Litasa admits, “but I’d rather someone know. I mean, if it’s important, tell me obviously, but otherwise I kinda like the mystery.”

“Speaking of mysteries, how’s it going with our Evanuris friend?”

“I’ve been testing which spells he can and cannot see through. It’s uh, well it’s tailored as all fuck, but I _think_ I have a chance of casting something that’ll withstand him. I know that’s not priority, but it’s bugging me.”

“It’s bugging me too!” Deacon admits. Litasa smiles before moving on to the training portion of the night.

By the end of the week he’ll have memorised 5 different ways to make Magebane, and will have used them all at least once, but it’ll take many more weeks for his nausea at the thought starts to die down.

Cremisius seems like a nice enough dude, but there needs to be a _conversation_ about the Bull’s Chargers before they can even consider recruitment.

“I’ve heard of them,” Deacon tells Litasa over their evening meal, and he’s doing Fereldan again but slightly closer to comically terrible, “and their Qunari leader.”

“Tal-Vashoth?” she asks lightly.

“ _Qunari,_ ” Deacon stresses, and watches as she pauses to reconsider. They can’t exactly afford to be under scrutiny of the Qun, but refusing such an offer might bring exactly that.

“Ben-Hassrath?” she finally asks.

“Almost certainly. I’m hoping for a Tallis or Hissrad but…”

“As long as it isn’t Viddasala,” Dickface completes.

“I honestly don’t know what you two are so worried about,” Varric grouses across the table. “No proper Qunari would be caught dead working with a mercenary group, and if he’s a horned one that means he’s Tal-Vashoth.”

No member of the Antaam would be part of a mercenary group, Deacon doesn’t say, but the Ben-Hassrath play by different rules. 

Litasa leans forward to look Varric directly in the eyes, “bet you five royals you’re wrong.”

“I’ll take that bet,” Varric chuckles.

“ _And if it_ **_is_ ** _a Viddasala?_ ” Deacon asks.

“ _Then we prepare for death_ ,” Litasa responds, which is fair enough. Deacon knows what that means.

* * *

“There’s one other thing. Might be useful, might piss you off,” Bull tells Dickface, pulled off to the side. Deacon ostensibly didn’t come on this recruitment mission, but Dickface knows he’s got eyes on her and is ready to make a scene, should things get nasty.

“You’re Ben-Hassrath? Specifically Hissrad, if I had to guess?”

“Well dang,” Bull grunts, “sure hit that nail on the head. Wouldn’t mind learning how you knew that,” he says through gritted teeth.

The best lies always contain the truth, Dickface knows, so she shrugs. “I’ve had enough meetings with the Viddasala to last a lifetime,” she admits, and gets to watch as Bull flinches, just a little. 

“Alright so, the Ariqun is concerned about the Breach, dangerous magic and all that. My orders are to make sure the Inquisition is up for the task of handling it, so they don’t have to launch an invasion to keep the whole damn world from falling apart. I’d be sending reports back to them, obviously, but nothing that would compromise your operations. I also get reports from other Ben-Hassrath agents all over Orlais. You sign me on, I’ll share them with your people.” That’s a valuable offer if genuine, though it’s a bit hard to imagine properly.

“I’ll agree, under one condition,” Dickface says. Bull simply raises an eyebrow. “Whatever you send, everything you send back to Par Vollen gets vetted by me, or my left hand Deacon, first.” Leliana would be reading all the outgoing messages regardless. 

“You drive a hard bargain,” Iron Bull grunts, but he doesn’t sound too broken up about it. “But I think we can make something work.”

“Welcome to the Inquisition, then,” Dickface smiles. And as Iron Bull goes to shout the news to Krem, Dickface yells across the clearing, “Oi, Varric! You owe me five royals!” and then cackles at his swearing in the distance.

* * *

“Hey Boss,” Bull falls into a comfortable step beside Dickface as they’re heading back to Haven. “I’m sure the get to know you questions will all happen at some point, but I’ve got something to ask you before that.”

Oh boy, here they go. “Alright,” Dickface says, trepidatiously. 

“Could you talk for like, two minutes? I’m trying to place your accent.”

Dickface blinks, shocked, before bursting out laughing. “Fuck’s sake, I thought it was going to be something serious. And uh, the reason you can’t pin down my accent is because it isn’t one. There’s a betting pool on where I spent my time after my clan kicked me out, and I don’t really want to give it away? So I’m desperately trying to sound unlike anywhere I’ve spent a bunch of time. And I’m nowhere near as skilled at accents as Deacon.”

Bull raises an eyebrow at the mention of a betting pool.

“Ask Varric if you want in,” Dickface giggles. “I’ve got no monetary stake in it, but it would be rude to mess with someone else’s joke.”

“Right,” Bull says as if he doubts that’s why she’s done nothing about said betting pool. “I’ll do that,” he sounds more genuine. “I assume I’ll be meeting this Deacon person of yours?”

Dickface smirks and gives a sharp whistle, at which point Deacon emerges from the thick shrubbery that lines the road. Bull seems more amused than surprised, which is fair. “Bull, this is our resident bush dweller Deacon. Deacon, this is the captain of our new mercenary friends. He’s called the Iron Bull.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Deacon drawls, leaning heavy into the Anderfels. It’s the most grating of accents and Dickface does her best to suppress the wince.

“Pleasure’s mine,” Bull grunts, as if he’s already figured out what Deacon’s joke is and picked up on the insult. And spoiling Deacon’s fun by revealing his skill at accents early is probably something she’ll apologise for. Eventually. 

“So, Terrier, do you always show up when she whistles?” Varric cuts into the conversation, addressing Deacon, “or was that a predetermined thing for the benefit of our new friend?”

“What, am I a dog now?” Deacon asks.

Dickface smiles. “Terrier. I like it.” Deacon groans. “Here boy,” Dickface calls, detaching her waterskin from her belt and chucking it into the forest, “fetch!”

The look on Deacon’s face says he’s contemplating punching someone in their sensitive bits, but he dutifully heads into the forest, and returns the waterskin by chucking it at her face. Dickface fumbles a little with the catch, but mostly because she’s laughing.

“Woof,” Deacon growls when he returns to their little party. Dickface only cackles harder.

* * *

After the fourth root he trips over in as many minutes, Varric decides to speak up. “You know, Stranger, we do have scouts that could do this scouting mission,” he grumbles, as they pick their way through brambles in the vague direction of Redcliff.

Their Herald of Andraste, Stranger, simply laughs.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Deacon asks, and he’s doing an overly foppish and obviously fake Orlesian accent today. “I thought you tramped around like this after the Champion all the time!”

“And I didn’t like it then, either,” Varric grouses. 

“Come, Master Tethras,” Solas interjects, “the weather is pleasant enough. And there’s been surprisingly few demons for all the rifts in the area.”

“Great. Now it’s going to rain, and rain demons on my ass. Thanks for that.”

Solas says nothing, but the slight twitch of his lips indicates he’s amused.

“Are we planning to approach?” Cassandra asks. “I thought you wanted to bring Vivienne along for the negotiations.”

“I do, I just…” Stranger trails off as they emerge from a copse of trees and are able to catch sight of the keep in the distance. “That’s a Tevinter flag,” she says, flatly. “One of the family crest lines, if I’m not mistaken. Does Redcliffe have Vint ties that I somehow wasn’t aware of?”

“It shouldn’t,” Deacon growls. 

It only takes Varric a few moments to pick out which flag they’re referring to. It’s not notably recogniseable to him, but it’s a fair bet that Stranger knows what she’s talking about here. 

“You are certain?” Cassandra asks.

“No. But we’re headed in anyway, because that’s not an unknown I’m comfortable with.”

No one argues with Stranger.

The news the scouts give them upon entering the village isn’t good. The news that a Magister is in charge is even worse. Something dark passes between Stranger and her dog, which leaves Deacon nodding and heading off to discuss things more in detail with the scouts. The Herald takes a moment to breathe, before leading them into the village.

* * *

Not that it’s particularly easy to tell given all the mages about, but Dickface can’t pick up on вёдала or anything else that could be affecting the Grand Enchanter’s memory. But her magical signature seems identical to whomever it was they met in Val Royeaux, which leaves Dickface feeling more unsettled than ever.

The Magister doesn’t sound much like blood magic either, though that’s really hard to tell given the strange _something_ he’s wrapped in. It’s not active cast, so Dickface doesn’t have a hope of piecing together what it even does, but the hints of it that still linger are… chilling. That he’s chosen to take so many under his wing is worse.

Were it not for the Breach, Dickface might consider it an ill begotten power grab. The more mages loyal to him the better, especially if one managed to snag a seat in the Magisterium, but that’s the key. Loyal mages are useful. Resentful mages are dangerous, and Gereon Alexius is not a fool.

Dickface admittedly doesn’t pay that much attention to Felix after an initial onceover reveals he isn’t a mage, and honestly she should have known better after she accentuates a jostling elbow to help cover his clumsy attempt at stealth passing a note. Alexius responds far too fast for his son’s condition to be an unknown, and Dickface gets the sinking feeling she knows what’s wrong with him, but there isn’t time to confirm.

“We’re in danger,” Dickface snorts while reading the note, “yeah no shit.”

“It could be a trap,” Cassandra comments.

“Oh almost certainly,” Varric drawls. “Would be a shame to leave it unsprung though, wouldn’t it?”

“Shall we rendezvous with Deacon beforehand?” Solas asks. “Or will he meet us there.”

“He’s around,” Dickface deadpans. “Let’s move.”

“Dorian of House Pavus, most recently of Minrathous,” the man introduces himself, and it’s easy enough to see the dagger thrown to barely graze one of his ears, and give it a force push so instead it clatters against a far wall.

“Deacon!” Dickface snaps, while everyone else looks around, bewildered, as the man in question steps from the shadows.

“It was just a warning shot,” Deacon hums, and between his thick Antivan accent and the dark leathers he’s changed into, Dickface knows exactly what sort of initial impression he wants to give off. The fucker.

“Temai,” she hisses, and gets to watch his distaste at the order boil under the expressly calm features, but he nods and retrieves his dagger before standing at her side, to which Dorian raises an eyebrow.

Then Dorian starts talking about _time magic_ , which is about 18 different kinds of bad. It explains the how, but not the why, and that’s when Felix walks in. 

She doesn’t have eyes on Deacon, but he shifts his weight to make his boots squeak when the word Venatori comes up, so he knows something at least. Dickface tunes the conversation out for a moment so she can Listen properly, and her gut feeling was indeed correct.

Felix has the Blight. 

He’s held up remarkably well, probably with the best treatments that money can buy, but there’s only so long you can delay the inevitable. He’s got between two and six months left, and probably knows it.

Interesting.

“Dorian,” Dickface says, “we’re headed back to Haven to establish a game plan, but I am not going to let this sit for any amount of time longer than I have to. If you want to be part of that conversation, you should come with us. I’d extend the offer to Felix as well, but I suspect he’s staying here to keep up appearances.”

“Exactly,” Felix responds.

“Seriously?” Dorian asks, taken slightly aback. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Dickface confirms.

“Herald,” Cassandra interjects, “I know you said we should be focused on forming connections but this man cannot be trusted.”

And just like that, Dickface is out of patience. “Oh what, are you going to arrest him too?” she snaps. “For the horrible crime of happening to be in a place and then trying to help out? Between Varric and I, your track record sure seems stellar. _Oh wait_.”

“She’s got a point, Lita!” Deacon interjects.

“Really? Really!” Dickface rounds on Deacon. “The Qunari spy was fine, but the second we meet a Vint you try to stab him?”

“I only meant–” Deacon begins

“There is a hole in the sky spitting demons!” Dickface roars, surveying the group. “We don’t have the luxury of saying no to allies, and if y’all wanna stand around and argue like twelve year olds you’re free to do so, but I actually plan to fix this mess. And if Dorian or Blackwall or even the Iron Fucking Bull want to help me then they are fucking welcome to do so.”

Felix nods in approval, while Dorian only looks shocked. Varric seems impressed, Cassandra aghast, and Deacon apologetic but not legitimately remorseful. It’s only Solas who really surprises her, a small twinkle of mirth in his eyes that he doesn’t bother to hide. That’s enough to knock her out of her rage, and suddenly the outburst seems awkward rather than righteous.

Exactly what she needs to make working with these people go smoothly. She sighs, and rubs a hand over her face.

“Stranger’s also got a point,” Varric echoes Deacon’s earlier statement before turning to Dorian. “So whaddya say, Sparkler? Can’t say you’ve seen us at our best, but this isn’t quite our worst so… Care to join an Inquisition?”

Dorian chuckles awkwardly. “Well, it’ll certainly never be boring.”

“Fetch whatever stuff you need,” Varric says, “I’ll make sure you find our camp alright.”

Dickface takes that for the dismissal it is, and goes to shove her face in a river.

* * *

“Has anyone given you shit?” Dickface corners Solas a little ways from the fire later that evening.

“Not literally, if that’s what you’re asking,” Solas answers easily, seemingly unruffled by the earlier events of the day.

“No I meant… About being a mage. Or an elf. Or an apostate. Or any of it, really.”

“There have been some comments,” Solas acknowledges, and Dickface quietly groans, “but I was always expecting there to be. Cassandra and Josephine have both been accommodating for my… somewhat unique circumstances. I’ve not seen anything that requires legitimate concern.”

“Okay,” Dickface nods, “but if that changes you let me know, alright?”

“Oh?” Solas raises an intrigued eyebrow

Dickface sighs, “I… I meant it when I said we couldn’t afford to say no to allies. But allying with someone and treating them with respect are two different things. There are many out there that that’s all they see. Allies. Enemies. Templars. Mages. Humans, Elves, Fereldans, Orleasians, they’re all the same to me because they’re all people. I would see people treated as _people_.

“An admirable goal,” Solas acknowledges, “and an unusual perspective.”

“You’re a person too, Solas,” Dickface says, and watches an odd expression of shock overtake the other man’s face. “You matter. You came here to help. I respect that, and I respect you. So if anyone gives you shit, I’ll punch them in the face.” Then she turns on her heels and wanders off towards the tent she shares with Deacon. 

“Thank you,” Solas murmurs into the night, after her disappearing form.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” Deacon says to her in the Fade.

“I don’t need you to apologise to me,” Dickface tries to keep the frustration out of her voice. “I just need you to be _better_. Because I know you’re better than this.”

Deacon sighs, and finally stops fighting.

“I know,” he whispers. “You’re right.”

“Damn straight. And if you’re serious, you’ll apologise to him for being an asshole. Now get the fuck off the floor and try again.”

Deacon groans. “This is the Fade. Why do all my limbs hurt?”

“Because you were being an asshole. Now get off the floor and do it again.”

Deacon gets off the floor.

* * *

"I meant to thank you," Dorian tells her the next day. He didn't actually have a horse, somehow, but the Inquisition currently has plenty and he's clearly been around the beasts before, if not actually ridden them. He takes to it well, and, depending on how their next few conversations go, Dickface might even tell him that. "But," Dorian continues, "introductions got a little derailed there."

"Let me guess," Dickface giggles, "Varric told you plenty but not anyone's name?"

"Oh he introduced himself," Dorian confirms, "and I was able to piece most things together over dinner last night," that she didn't attend as there were large-but-not-giant spiders at the river and she had to wash her clothes before they stained, "but no one's said a word about you."

"Of course they haven't," Dickface rolls her eyes. "Ellana, formerly of Clan Lavellan, Wanderer of Thedas and most recently, Herald of Andraste. I'd shake your hand, but you know. Horse."

"Yes well, if it's very important, I'm sure we can do it at some point when our teeth aren't getting rattled out."

He wants to ask. Dickface knows he does, that's why she brought it up.

"Wanderer of Thedas?" He questions after a moment, and Dickface throws her head back and laughs. The man has tact after all. 

"Clan kicked me out when I was small," she says, "for what seemed like a perfectly justifiable reason at the time, don't ask, and I've been travelling ever since. And before you ask, my Clan has recently welcomed me back with open arms that the Inquisition Spymaster says has nothing to do with either threats or bribery, but I'll believe _that_ when I see it."

She is, Dickface thinks, being a mite shit to the Dalish right now. She'll defend their people from a lot, but criticism of that damned three mage policy isn't one of those things. She'll have to make it up to them in some other way, because she needs to bend this story so it will work for her. 

Varric has pulled his small horse that is in no way a pony back a bit to be within easy listening distance, and Dickface smiles. He's exactly the kind of person who could sell this.

"Wanderer of Thedas," Dorian confirms. "Forgive me if this sounds insensitive, but the face tattoos. That's a Dalish thing, right? You got them young?"

"Among the proper Dalish it's called vallas’lin, and it's a coming of age thing made to represent their gods. These," Dickface gestures to her own face, "were done in an expensive ass tattoo parlor in Antiva. They're for camouflage."

"You don't consider yourself Dalish then?"

"I'm a Dwarf," Dickface keeps a straight face, which gets a baffled laugh from Dorian. "But seriously, I hardly know any Dalish customs and it's not as if they raised me. There's a fantastic woman out there who took on the duties of being my mom, Maker bless her soul, but she certainly wasn't Dalish, so why should I be? However I _am_ a mage, and Templars treat Dalish Mages slightly differently from those born in cities, and that was the edge I needed to stay out of the Circle."

"Fascinating. Tell me, do you blurt out this story to every new person you meet? Or am I just special."

Dickface snorts, "I'm not telling it to you, I'm telling it to Varric," and she can tell the dwarf in question is rolling his eyes but pulls the not-pony back even further so he can be properly in the conversation. 

"I've only said it once," she tells Dorian, and that much at least is the truth, "and I'd really rather not have to say it again. But Varric will make sure the people who need to know do, and those who don't do not."

It's a gamble within a gamble, given how little she knows about Varric and the nothing she knows about Dorian, but Varric’s worked with a spy network. He’ll know what she means. He turns back to make eye contact, and simply nods once. 

"Clever little blighter you are," Dorian murmurs. "I have no idea how much of that was true, but I'm inclined to believe you."

"Hey don't go giving all your secrets away," Varric barks, louder than he needs to. "It'd be weird to call you Stranger if you weren't strange."

"She will always be strange," Solas calls back to the lot of them, "but accuracy in your nicknames was not something I knew you were concerned about, Master Tethras."

"We take the lot we're given, Chuckles," Varric shouts back.

"If we are to reach Haven before nightfall," Cassandra yells, now that she's fairly far ahead, "you will all need to hurry up."

"Are we reaching Haven before nightfall?" Dorian leans over and asks.

"Not a chance," Varric says, simultaneous with Dickface's "nope."

"Well, that settles that question. Another night of camping it is. Delightful." Dorian sounds anything but delighted.

"Cheer up, Sparkler," Varric drawls, "a couple more weeks of this and you won’t have to worry _if_ your boots are full of spiders.”

“Oh goodie,” Dorian shudders.

They don’t make it to Haven before nightfall.

* * *

“I thought I was supposed to get wacky Lyrium training,” Deacon says, as he lays panting on the floor. Litasa has made their Fade space from memories he doesn’t recognise this time, but as they’re in an underground training ring, Deacon assumes she knows this place well.

“You apologise to Dorian yet?” Litasa snaps, and she hasn’t even broken a sweat yet. He can’t tell if that’s because she’s used to this kind of workout, or if she’s messing with the Fade somehow so she doesn’t feel it.

“No,” Deacon admits, reluctantly. There hadn’t been a convenient time, and Deacon hasn’t made time, in part because he doesn’t want to apologise to the man while it looks like he’s only doing it to appease Litasa. Which he’d currently be doing. Because he hasn’t seen the man do anything redeemable. Because he hasn't seen the man do anything. Because he’s been avoiding interacting with Dorian entirely.

“Uh-huh,” Litasa sounds entirely as unimpressed as Deacon figured she would. “Lyrium doesn’t work right in the fade, so we can’t do that training here.”

“Oh.”

“When we get a safe space to do so, I’ll teach you what you need to know.”

“Right.”

“What do we know about the Venatori?”

“Not much. They’re new, and only really gaining traction with backwaters. But they gained notoriety not through power but by how fast they were growing, which is why we looked into them at all. I bet if I asked, they’d have way more info on them now.”

“And are you going to ask?” Litasa sounds neutral. This at least, is a question Deacon knows the answer to.

“Not a fucking chance.”

“Good boy,” Litasa smiles, and she’s really rubbing the dog joke in, but Deacon can’t quite help the pleased flush that spreads over his skin at the praise. He’s so fucked. “Now get the fuck off the floor and run it again.”

Deacon groans, but really he’d been asking for this. Should’ve just taken the hit and apologised. 

Deacon gets off the floor.

* * *

Dickface calls them all into their rather tiny war room for this. Blackwall seems a little uncertain, being pulled in with all the highest ranking members of the Inquisition, but everyone else seems an array of curious to smug, with Sera going as far as to sit on an end table, which Josephine looks about to make a fuss about, before she sighs and lets it go. There are far more important things going on, namely the argument progressing between the advisors, which is already starting to give Dickface a headache.

“It’s not _about_ Templars or Mages,” Dickface snaps the third time Cullen brings up the issue. “We have a Magister working with a Tevinter Cult practically on our doorstep, that has to be the priority.”

“Redcliffe Castle is one of the most defensible fortresses in Ferelden,” Cullen explains like it’s obvious, and to be fair, maybe to a Fereldan it is, “we don’t have the manpower to even attempt to take it.”

“Nor am I suggesting we attempt it, but there’s more than one way into a castle, even if only through the sewers. How are their sewers by the way?” Dickface addresses Leliana.

“Fine, but there may be an easier way. A secret passage into the castle, built as an escape route for family.”

“Large enough for a small team,” Deacon muses, in a decently passable Nevarran accent.

“Especially if I’m going in the front door as a distraction,” Dickface extrapolates.

“That’d be where I come in,” Dorian adds, “I can get your people past Alexius’ wards without him noticing.”

“It is a risk,” Leliana acknowledges, “but one worth taking.”

“Great!” Deacon claps his hands, “sounds like we have a plan.”

“We do,” Dickface murmurs, “which is why you aren’t going.”

“Excuse me?” Deacon splutters.

“There're thirteen people in this room, and I’d like to think I can delegate. I said the Magister was priority, not that he was the only target. We are going to Redcliffe. You are going to Therinfal Redoubt.”

“Oh,” Cullen seems shocked but pleased.

Deacon sighs, but runs an acknowledging hand through his hair. “Recruitment then?”

“No,” Dickface allows some amusement into her tone, “you’ll be playing extraction. The Lord Seeker made it very clear he’s going to be making a nuisance of himself, and we don’t exactly have the manpower to fight his army either. So I’d like you to go in, find as many uncorrupted souls as you can and just… make off with them. Steal his forces right out from under him if you will.”

The advisors seem incredulous, but Deacon has a ginormous smile on his face. “Lita,” he croons, “it would be my genuine pleasure.”

“And you’re comfortable with this?” Cassandra asks? “Just sending him off on his own?”

“It’s a stealth mission. The kind of stealth that works without backup, unlike what we’ll be pulling at Redcliffe, and it’s non priority, meaning if things get hairy Deacon can just leave and nothing of value would be lost. And, other than Blackwall and Solas, he’s the only one here I know has plenty of experience working alone.”

“Still, I would feel more comfortable if you sent someone with him,” Cassandra states. 

“And you’d volunteer yourself,” Dickface sighs. The main drawback of sending Deacon solo is that he isn’t a mage, which limits options sometimes. That and it looks weird. “I know you want to be there to help with the Templars,” Dickface says, meeting Cassandra’s eyes with sincerity, “but you do not have a stealthy bone in your body, and that’d put Deacon at risk. Still…”

Who isn’t going to interfere with what Deacon needs to get done?

“Deacon, you’ll take Solas and Blackwall with you. Vivienne, Cassandra, Bull, I want you with me when we walk in those front gates. Dorian, you’ll be with Varric and Sera and some of Leliana’s people coming in through the side passage. Cullen, I want you to keep the troops on standby in case things get dicey. Josephine, you’re in charge while I’m gone, try not to burn the place down. Any questions?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  **Ившидагъядн (Evsheedagyadn)**  
>  Юзъан ( _yuzan_ ): guardian  
> Вёдала ( _vyodala_ ): magic from the body, commonly assumed to be blood magic
> 
>  **Tevene**  
>  _Owarai evas_ : keep sharp, colloquially similar to ‘keep your eyes peeled’  
>  _Temai_ : A more informal version of Temaus (calm, peace, or at ease) as one might shout at a dog
> 
> I don't know what's worse, Dickface for using 'you count as a person' as a flirt line on Solas, or Solas for being into it. REGARDLESS I've got editing help from MissyStrange, but we're both terrible at spotting typos, so if you wanna help out/learn stuff early/scream at me for playing Minecraft rather than writing you can shoot a message to RosemaryBagels#9705 on Discord or scream at me on Twitter @RosemaryBagels


	3. Deathbringer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dickface finds a broken future.
> 
> Deacon finds a demon.
> 
> Just their luck, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to Beta Read this story? Shoot a message to RosemaryBagels#9705 on Discord or scream at me on Twitter @RosemaryBagels

* * *

“Mission Statement,” Litasa says, and Deacon takes a moment to orient himself. She’s approached him in his dreams for once, rather than pulling him into hers. Fittingly, they’re in Anumturai’s office.

“Acknowledged.” They’re wearing the proper armour too. Deacon in the regalia, and Litasa in the ornate stuff she designed herself. She’s playing with it’s colours again. It looks nice.

“Target is the Lord Seeker. All other objectives are secondary.”

Deacon’s fingers itch for his knives. Not that they haven’t been killing things, but this’ll be a challenge for once.

“And Deacon?” Litasa makes an effort to fake seeming coy. “Clean sweep, please.”

An extra wrinkle to work around. Delightful.

Deacon salutes.

* * *

It feels good to be moving with a task, even if he can’t exactly trust the people at his back, Deacon decides. Both Rainier and the Evanuris are decent travel companions as neither object to early starts or hunting for food to avoid burning through their rations. And they’re both quiet, at least initially, which gives Deacon more time to think through exactly what the plan is here. 

He’s probably going to have to ditch one or both of them at some point, given that he can't predict them enough to plan around them. Despite the annoyance, he knows why Litasa chose them. People provide cover. Mages are useful, and Vivienne absolutely would have interfered with his main goal. And among the proper warriors, Rainier really is the only one that stands a chance of going unnoticed for any amount of time. He’ll have to hope it’ll be enough.

“Deacon,” Rainier breaks the silence contemplatively, “I’ve been wondering. You knew the Herald before this Inquisition business started up, right?”

Given his reaction to finding Litasa alive, it’s no wonder that knowledge has become widespread. “The rumours, in this case, are true,” Deacon acknowledges, going a touch lighter with his typical Rivaini accent. Rainier shoots him an odd look, and Deacon realises the other man must not have heard him enough to recognise the accent game. That’s fun.

“How’d you meet her?” Rainier asks, completely sincerely and with a touch of awe to his voice.

Oh well that’s just too good an opening to pass up. But which cover story to tell…

“Well,” Deacon allows uncertainty to flood his voice, “I’m not exactly sure I should say.”

“And why is that?” the Evanuris joins the conversation from Deacon’s other side.

“Well it's… what we were doing at the time wasn’t exactly… legal. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it immoral, but that’s not necessarily the kind of story about our Herald we want spreading around, is it?” Litasa would find it hilarious of course, but they both have roles to play.

“Exactly how illegal are we talking here?” Rainier inquires, a hint of doubt creeping into his voice. Deacon makes a show of looking around to check if there are other people on the road. There aren’t. 

“We may have been part of two different groups that were hired by the same client, in competition with each other I should point out, to steal a small yet truly butt ugly statue from the summer house of a relative of a fairly well off but minor local lord.”

“Oh,” Rainier sounds surprised, yet not particularly judgemental. The Evanuris is harder to read, but he doesn’t seem particularly distraught, so Deacon continues.

“Yeah and when I say butt ugly, I mean it. It was, I shit you not, the statue of a slug riding a horse carved from this rock that was some sickly shade of yellow. Made the entire thing look like a booger. Maker only knows why anyone wanted it, as just looking at it made you feel unclean, never mind touching it.”

“Let me guess,” Rainier interjects, “both of your groups found the statue, but none of you wanted to pick it up.”

“Oh no, it gets worse. See, the client who hired us to steal the damn thing was a fucker from the next county over who wanted to expand into our territory and thought the best way to get rid of his competition was to hire said competition to break into this summer home, which was actually a front for the Carta.”

“Oh no,” Rainier groans.

“Yeah so Lita and I met staring at this fucking snot slug statue, absolutely swarmed by Carta goons, and knowing that if we fought our way out and survived, our respective bosses would absolutely lynch us for pissing off the fucking Carta.”

“And yet, you are both here,” the Evanuris comments dryly, “so one must assume things worked out.”

“With some quick thinking, yeah. Carta wasn’t happy about our presence there but they weren’t particularly keen to play someone else’s executioner either. So we convinced the local Tsyoka to…  _ lend _ us the dumb statue, under armed guard of course, and our three parties went to confront the client. Personally. And the look on his face when the lot of us barged into his office… Priceless.”

Rainier cackles, and the Evanuris cracks a small smile.

“We told him to piss off and not come back, which he did, Carta told us never to contact them again, which -in fairness- we genuinely tried to do, and since the two of us worked so well together our respective bosses started negotiations for a sort of… mutual sharing of resources, we’ll say. The deal fell through in the end,” Deacon sighs, “Lita’s bosses have consistently been shitlords, and mine at the time was a bit of an overbearing asshole. But she and I both value personal alliances over structural ones, which is… well…” Deacon trails off, not entirely certain the best way to end this story.

“And your allegiances now?” the Evanuris’ voice is cold, and Deacon has to take a moment to swallow his distaste.

“I haven’t belonged to anyone but her for a long time,” he says, completely honestly for once. Something of that must ring true, because the Evanuris nods slowly, and then backs off.

“I’m glad she has someone like you then,” Rainier says. “Someone who’ll always have her back in this mess, no matter what happens.”

“Always,” and if there’s only ever one promise he can keep, Deacon knows it’ll be that one.

Always.

* * *

The first thing Dorian does after the world snaps back into focus is search for and make eye contact with Ellana, the Herald. Her eyes are unfocused and she reels back almost like she's about to faint, but then she catches herself. The second thing Dorian does is vomit on the stone floor of whatever room they happen to be standing in. The world hasn't quite stopped spinning, and Dorian steadies himself against a nearby pillar as he hears Ellana losing the contents of her stomach as well. There's… something wrong with his mana, it doesn't seem to settle, burbling and roiling within his stomach, and the world careens a little so Dorian grips onto the pillar as hard as he can.

"Maker," a chipper voice breathes from the doorway, "are you two okay?"

Dorian looks over to see a pale yet heavily freckled dwarven woman wearing… some kind of heraldry he doesn't recognise. Ellana is still puking bile, so Dorian takes a moment to slide down the pillar so he's sitting on the floor leaning against it. That helps with the spinning, mildly. There are sparks on his fingertips, he distantly notices. It takes an effort to stop casting. It felt so natural, he barely noticed it at all. 

"What the fuck?" he whispers.

"The Veil," Ellana croaks, Maker she sounds terrible, "the Veil is fucking  _ gone _ ."

Oh. Oh well that would... Ellana leans over to throw up again and Dorian briefly contemplates doing the same. But no, someone needs to make sense of this, and Ellana… takes off her boots and flings them at a wall, the thud echoing in the strange silence.

_ Where are we? _ seems the most pertinent question along with  _ what happened? _ and another  _ what the fuck? _ but instead what Dorian blurts out is, "who the fuck are you?"

"Harding. I would have been Scout Harding when you met me, if you met me. Did you meet me?"

"No?" Dorian's never met her. Has he met her? The question is worded weird and the sounds are warping in a way Dorian doesn’t like.

"Where the fuck are we?" Ellana coughs.

"You're in the same place you were," Harding chirps, "Redcliffe. But that's not the most interesting question. What matters more is the when."

That makes a bit more sense, but the world still hasn't stopped doing… whatever the fuck its doing, so Dorian decides he's got to ask.

"Alright then. When are we?"

And Scout Harding tells them.

"Oh. Oh well that's–"

"Outside," Ellana hisses, "I need to go outside, the walls are all wrong in here."

"Deacon asked me to–" Harding begins.

"Fuck Deacon!" Ellana shouts with sudden ferocity. "Take me outside."

Harding hesitistates a moment before nodding. "Right, follow me."

It's weird getting to his feet, and Dorian has to fight a giggle because the Veil is fucking  _ gone _ , but really it's the floor pulsing that's the problem and once he figures out he can mostly just float over instead of walk on it, then the sickness goes away.

There are sparks radiating from his fingers again, and the more he thinks about stopping them the harder it is to remember what exactly he was supposed to be stopping, so instead he walks across the room to help Ellana up. She doesn't seem to notice the sparks, and smiles weakly. Oh good, that still works. 

There's a well lit hallway ahead, but Harding takes a right and leads them into what might be a servants staircase. Ellana seems to settle a bit as they make their way downwards, though Dorian has to pause a moment when a casual touch manages to electrify the entire railing.

Ellana may or may not puke again on the stairs. 

The important thing is that the railing stays electrified even when he stops touching it, and that they do make it to the bottom. From there it's another short corridor and then a big oak door, and hey this might be the path they took to get into Redcliffe in the first place, and then there's blessed wind on his face, which feels amazing as long as he isn't looking at the view.

He can see the Fade. It doesn't even look like anything, not a colour or a thing, but it's flowing through the sky, and Dorian finds his eyes trailing currents he can't see. And the sky itself is...

"Makers breath!" And that's a voice he recognises.

"Butter me up and call me a biscuit."

"He was right. I can't believe he was right.”

“Andraste has returned you to us.”

“Stranger, you’re alive.”

“Hey, Chief! You’d better get over here!”

There’s three people gaping at them as they proceed down another small staircase into a small fenced in area. One he instantly recognises as Varric Tethras, even if the three of them are basically in rags. Then there’s an older Orlesian woman that Dorian is fairly certain he’s seen in passing and another young man, Vint probably, that he’s sure he hasn’t.

“Varric. Mother Giselle? Krem?” Ellana greets them bewildered as she stumbles down the steps, and that really covers all the introductions Dorian would have needed. He wouldn’t have recognised the mother without her gauche hat. “Bull,” Ellana smiles, when the Qunari jogs into view, and him Dorian certainly would’ve recognised, even if he couldn’t recall the name.

They’re standing on paved stone here, which Ellana taps a bare foot against in vague disgust.

“This isn’t working,” she says, “I need dirt, real dirt.”

“I brought you outside because you asked,” and there’s something strange in Harding’s voice now. Not a demon, but a sense of foreboding. “But I really need to take you to see Her now.”

“Her?” Ellana’s voice goes dark. “Earlier you said Deacon asked for me. Who’s her?”

“I misspoke,” Harding says, though she hardly sounds like Harding anymore, “Deacon is waiting for you inside, and has been for a long time. You should go see him.” Varric and Bull and Krem are all slowly assuming ‘combat ready’ positions, so Dorian lets the sparks coat his hands once again. 

“If Deacon wants to see me,” Ellana slowly enunciates, “he can come out and see me himself.”

“Enough!” Harding shrieks, face rippling unnaturally as an inhuman scream echoes from her– its throat. “Amelanen!”

That’s not a word Dorian recognises, but clearly Ellana does because she sends out a force push strong enough to shake the walls of the castle that sends the Harding-Thing flying back through the door they just exited. There’s commotion within the castle though, and shouting picks up around the side where the proper courtyard is.

“Tell me you guys had a proper plan,” Ellana says.

“Horses!” Krem says, pointing towards a gate a fair distance down the path. "There's some outside for us."

"Fair enough," Ellana sends out another force push that utterly obliterates the nearby courtyard wall.

They all move very quickly after that.

After the six of them are through the wall hole Ellana hums something and the stones almost seem to flow back into their original place. Most mages Dorian's known would be lifting the blocks but he can't tell if the difference is an Ellana thing or a no fucking Veil thing and it doesn't really matter as they're running along the wall to reach the horses. The five horses. For six of them. The commotion in the castle is growing louder with an angry buzzing.

"I'll stay," Bull growls, "my weight will only slow you down."

"And I cannot fight," Mother Giselle objects, "it should be me."

"I'm sorry," Krem blurts out, "I should have planned for this and I didn't it should be–"

"All of you shut the fuck up!" Ellana snaps, "get the fuck on a horse and go. Straight east til you hit the forest proper, and then northeast from there." And then, to the surprise of literally everyone, Ellana shapeshifts into a bird.

It's small, a blue songbird of some type that Dorian doesn't recognise that flits to land on his shoulder. She's got some sort of dampening effect because the sparks between his fingers instantly stop, and Dorian feels a little more sense crawl into his head.

The sounds of a gate being raised in the distance jerks everyone into action. They grab horses, Bull taking an extra moment to make sure Mother Giselle is seated correctly, before they all bolt as fast and eastwardly as they can possibly go.

The Ellana-Bird grips it's talons harshly into his neck, and Dorian can only hope they survive long enough to figure out what is going on.

* * *

They make it to Therinfal Redoubt by mid-afternoon. Or rather they would, if they rode straight up to it. By unanimous and undiscussed consensus, they linger in its periphery, where the treeline is still relatively thick, and watch.

They eat dry rations that night, as while they remain fairly invisible from this distance, the light from a fire would give them away immediately.

Deacon isn't quite sure what Rainier and the Evanuris are looking for, but the slowly fading sunlight glints off the helmets of patrolling guards. The fortress is clearly in high alert. The walls are thick, and throughout their watch the gate does not open.

There is also something seriously wrong.

_ Fade-sensitive _ , Litasa had called him, as close to being a mage as one could get without being able to cast a damn thing. The aura of spells leaves a residue, one he can taste in the back of his mouth, and sense with the edges of his fingertips. Wards leave the air heavy, runes tremble the floor before he steps on them, and he's gotten quite good at avoiding magical traps with the strange ability. He can even identify most magical schools if given enough time, though that rarely happens. And the fact that he can tell that Therinfal Redoubt is steeped in magic he doesn't recognise is very bad.

Any exclusively Templar stronghold being full of magic would be bad, but whatever this is coats the back of his throat with a texture not unlike curdled milk. It's vile, and makes Deacon reluctant to approach without more information.

"The gate is our best way in," Rainier says, and to be fair he's probably correct, "but I'm not sure there's anything we could say to get them to open it."

"It'd be easier to sneak in if they had the gate open for someone else," Deacon does his best attempt at a pure Kirkwallian accent and it's probably only passible because Varric isn't around to object.

"Something is not right here," the Evanuris murmurs, confirming the strange magic Deacon can feel on the back of his tongue.

"We should sleep early tonight," Deacon says, happy when no objections are raised. "Templars rise early, but I bet they aren't happy about it. If there's an opportunity, it'll be then." The two men nod, and the Evanuris goes to pull out his bedroll. "Blackwall, you take first watch," he adds, as the man seems uninclined to rest at present, "and keep an eye on the gate."

Rainier simply nods.

It's curious, Deacon thinks, as he surreptitiously eats a small package of herbs, because he wouldn't sleep at all were he alone. The two 'helpers' Litasa sent with him provide a unique opportunity, and a venue for information he hasn't used in a long time.

He closes his eyes in the twilight, and opens them again amidst the black-green trees of the Fade.

Honestly, the herbs probably weren't even necessary, given how used to Fade Training he's become these days, but still;  _ the Fade works the way you think it does,  _ so a probably wasn't going to cut it.

Deacon isn't a Dreamer, by any means, but the infiltration of another's unconscious mind is something he's practised. Were Litasa here she could fling his consciousness into any number of dreams amongst the sleeping Templars, and he could dig for a variety of things. Litasa could theoretically do any of that herself as well, but she tends to be blunt where he is… subtle.

Nothing might come of it, Deacon knows, as he finds the tools to do what he needs lying on the forest floor, but if he doesn't try there's absolutely nothing he can learn.

He can't walk to find dreams, but that doesn't mean he can't find dreams at all.

Deacon cracks his knuckles, and begins to construct a lure.

* * *

Their pursuers, Dorian notes after about two hours, are starting to catch up to them.

The horse Bull is riding, while larger than average, certainly wasn’t made for fast travel carrying someone of his stature. Neither Varric or Mother Giselle seem super experienced or comfortable riders, while Dorian keeps finding his eyes dragging across the rivers of Fade pouring through the sky. If he squints, he can almost see them, but trying just makes the nausea come back so he attempts to stop that. Only he can’t seem to stop himself. It’s mesmerising. He sways in his saddle, twisting to get a better view, only to be jolted as the harsh talons of the Ellana-Bird dig roughly into his shoulder. He's lucky he hasn't unseated himself by this point.

Their pursuers weren't so looming when they were riding through small clusters of trees, but soon treeline fades then ends as they cross into what must have once been farmland, given the prevalence of corn. But it is no longer and wildgrasses, weeds, and saplings are reclaiming the once domesticated space. There’s more forest, but it’s far in the distance, and Dorian knows that whatever is following them will see them long before they hit that distant treeline.

The only option they have is forward. So they race as fast as they can. And when Dorian hears a call behind him he can’t exactly not look. Thundering towards them is the Harding-Thing, an unholy grimace on her face, followed by rider after rider after rider. They all have bows, Dorian distantly realises, so he reaches for his mana to cast a barrier, and wow that’s way easier than it should be. But before he can actually cast, the Ellana-Bird flits off his shoulder and Dorian feels the sky swell, and his stomach lurches. For a moment there's a screaming headache, but then Ellana's back as an elf, perched behind him on the horse.

“Keep on going,” she whispers, and valiantly enough, the horse seems to listen.

It’s only when a volley of arrows actually flies that Dorian remembers, oh yeah barrier, and goes again to cast. The spell comes easily, rippling through his fingers like water, and then it’s in his lungs and he can’t breathe, or he’s breathing mana, and it  _ pinches _ and  _ twists _ when the barrier finally gets cast and his lungs are suddenly clear again.

The arrows bounce harmlessly about a foot away from their targets. It’s the most powerful barrier spell Dorian has ever cast.

Ellana is humming.

There’s more archers pouring into the field now, and they fire a second volley but Dorian’s barriers haven’t even started to decay yet, and how weird is that, so Dorian bemusingly watches more arrows bounce harmlessly against open air. 

Ellana is swaying with her humming now. The ground is starting to tremble.

“There is nowhere for you to run!” the Harding-Thing shrieks with an inhuman voice. “There is nowhere to go that She cannot find you.”

“We’ll see about that,” Ellana mutters, somehow still humming. The archers prime to fire again, and in that pause, there is a moment of silence.

Ellana reaches a hand back, and the earth rips open.

There’s a moan and then a snap so loud it's as if several hundred trees fell all at once, and the field gapes to open like it’s some sort of mouth. It starts as a line in front of the archers but tears wider and wider, going faster and faster as the yawning chasm expands. His ears are screaming as the entire world seems to shake, but Ellana yanks hard and then Dorian can spot a divot where the gash cuts into the horizon, watches dust rise from distant mountains as the shakes reach them and loose boulders start avalanches.

The horses rear and panic on both sides, many archers being thrown or trampled as others are swallowed by the earth. Dorian’s own mount picks up speed with a bolt of terror. Ellana lowers her hand as her hummed tune comes to a close, and there's a brief moment of silence before a devastating howling escapes the pit.

Piercing wails of sorrow and vengeance, and though Dorian doesn’t recognise them at the time later, he will when those sounds echo in his nightmares.

Whatever Ellana did cut deep enough to wake Darkspawn.

The Harding-Thing is howling in pure rage, but Dorian’s completely numb, vaguely aware of Bull, of Varric, of Krem exclaiming things, and the horses running running, still ever running, but all he can feel is Ellana’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing hard. Keeping him bound, to this physical, to this moment.

He doesn’t want to think about what he’d be doing if she weren’t here. 

They keep riding as the screeching of the Harding-Thing slowly dies away, but no one relaxes until they hit the next treeline. At Ellana’s signal, they drop pace substantially, if only to give the horses a break.

“Alright, so I’ll be the first to say it,” Varric says after a long moment, “Stranger, what the fuck?”

Ellana laughs as she leans forward, sending out a pulse of healing magic to all their horses, which seems to improve their breathing a little. “Which of the things that just happened would you like clarification on?” she asks.

“The earth splitting open? You turning into a bird?” Varric’s clearly shaken and trying to sound calm.

“The Harding-Thing,” Dorian murmurs.

“The Harding-Thing,” Ellana acknowledges. “I have a theory about that, and I don’t like it, so I’m hoping it’s wrong.”

“Your guess is as good as ours at this point,” Varric grumbles.

“Can we loop back to the part where you casually carved a ravine?” Bull askes. 

“It’s a Dwarf thing,” Ellana deadpans. 

“No seriously,” Bull insists. 

“Uh, Chief?” Krem calls from where he’s pulled forward a little, “up ahead.”

Dorian looks up as the rest of them do to find his eyes once again drawn to one of those strange Fade paths only this time it’s not dancing across the sky like some sort of strange aurora. The Fade river has come down to nearly touch the earth, and it’s wide and vast expanse filled with so much magic floating through and towards and around, and it’s absolutely filled with spirits.

Most are entirely non corporeal, flowing into and against each other, many of them grey with indecision or age, simply convalessed energy without reason or source, but many more are wisps. Small bright lights against a miasma of pale smoke in vast arrays of colours. There are many spirits floating or flying past that are seemingly half formed. Ones with arms and heads but no legs, or that seem like animals only to shift. There are one or two he recognises, Desire, Pride, Joy, but they’re floating past far higher, towards the center of whatever this stream is.

Ellana hops off the back of his horse, and though Varric and Bull both call out a warning, she approaches the spirit procession with open hands. She moves like she’s dancing, like it’s raining and she could dodge through the raindrops. Her bare feet move slowly yet deliberately, carving small patterns into the dirt and she reaches a cautious hand into the current and then pulls it back. Tilts her head like a curious bird, then slowly walks into the stream.

The spirits flow around her, as if they can only perceive her enough to avoid her, but standing there she starts to smile as if she’s found something wonderful.

“The Veil is gone, but the Fade hasn’t equalised yet,” she explains to her vaguely horrified entourage as she opens her arms to allow the spirits to flow over them. “When it first fell I imagine rivers like this were quite destructive, as the Fade tried to go everywhere at once. But as it spreads and settles these rivers will slow, until they are the same as everything else.”

“Solas said something similar,” Iron Bulls says after a moment. “Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to stand in one of those things though.”

“I’m in no more danger here than I am anywhere else,” Ellana giggles, but steps out of the spirit river back towards them.

A few spirits follow after her, trailing slowly in her wake. Most of them are wisps, floating slowly and dismissed with a wave, but a few of them, bright pink balls with soft pale tentacles like strange floating octopi, seem to float-swim after her. Ellana keeps a hand outstretched, and giggles when the spirits rub inquisitive tentacles over her armour and the skin of her hands.

"You sure about that?" Varric asks, readying Bianca, "because I'm not sure those things look friendly."

"What, these?" Ellana uses her free hand to scratch one's core head thing affectionately, and it chirups under the attention. "They are Curiosity. They're no more dangerous than a toddler with a desperate need to put everything in its mouth."

"That's plenty dangerous enough," Varric shudders, but Krem cautiously reaches out a hand.

"You mean these little guys are friendly?"

Ellana chuckles and gently nudges one of the creatures towards him, and Krem lets out a delighted "oh!" when it makes contact with his hand.

"Oh, that's rather sweet, isn't it?" he comments, looking in awe at the tiny thing slowly exploring his fingers.

Still though, things are strange. "Why an octopus though?" Dorian asks, mostly to himself. "Don't spirits aim to mimic humanity?"

"I imagine they would if they were here for you," Ellana elaborates, "but these are here for me, and _ I _ think humanoid shapes are rather boring."

"Child, if you are being haunted by these demons," Mother Giselle begins, but Ellana cuts her off.

"That's not what I meant. Like attracts like in the Fade, so Curiosity is drawn to me because I am a curious person. Curious and well…" Ellana trails off and points to where a strange yet elegant teal horse has emerged from the trees.

"That's Duty," she says, and the horse whickers as she points at it, "and I believe they'll solve our problem of lacking a sixth horse."

"And you would trust such a creature with this job?" Mother Giselle sounds very concerned.

"I trust him to do his duty, just like he trusts me to do mine. And right now, his duty is to be a horse."

That… makes a strange amount of sense in Dorian's head, even though the loud ringing of swarming mana hasn't abated enough for him to really think clearly.

"Why aren't we completely swarmed with spirits then?" Dorian wonders, trying not to feel weird about the fact that spirits have approached Ellana and Ellana alone. "Why aren't there some for aspects of all of us?"

"Got some things, Solas called them Dissuasion Runes," Krem chimes, "they were widely circulated after the Veil fell, and are basically common practice now."

"The problem is, they only  _ sort of _ work," Iron Bull growls, shooting a pointed glance over to a bush, where a deep indigo spirit with Qunari horns sits crouched, and watching. "She's been following me for ages, and nothing I've done has been able to shake her off."

Ellana looks over curiously, before bursting into laughter. "That's Patience, Bull," she chuckles. "You're never going to be able to wait her out, no matter how hard you try. And I suspect Solas knew that damn well."

"Stupid Fade crap," Bull grumbles, but he aquiesses easily enough.

Oh of course, Dorian realises with something far too resigned to be jealousy, if the only people the spirits could detect were him and Ellana, of course they'd go for her without hesitation. Now that he's looking, really looking at her, she seems almost blindingly bright, like a beacon of hope against this hellish Fade-world, no wonder she easily attracts the attention of so many. It's only natural and honestly he isn't even sure he wants the attention of any spirits at all, even, because they're foreign and weird and beautiful and that might make the necromancy… difficult.

And yet when a small wisp drifts out of the spirit river and heads towards him this time, Dorian feels a strange burst of relief and maybe a little gratitude.

The wisp is tiny and a soft yellow, blinking slowly, a lazy firefly as it hovers, uncertainly, a few steps away from him.

"Ellana, not to be concerned or anything," Dorian says, unable to hide the concern in his voice, "but what  _ is _ it?"

"Oh lucky you," Ellana says, giving him a gentle smile. "That's Hope."

Oh. Well that. It couldn't possibly be… but it is.

The Hope-Wisp floats ever closer, slowly, as if it's afraid he'll bolt, but Dorian takes a good look at Mother Giselle's concerned face, Bull's resigned one, Krem's utter delight, and Varric, who mostly just looks like he wants paper to take notes. And then there's Ellana, strange spirit wind ruffling her hair, surrounded by Pink Octopus Curiosity and the strange Teal Duty Horse, standing with confidence, like there's no place she'd rather be.

Dorian holds his hand out, and gets to feel the delighted warmth when Hope settles into it.

* * *

"What an odd creature to call out to something like me," a dark figure murmurs as it slowly steps into Deacon's peripheral vision. It stops there, a shadow barely within view while Deacon keeps his breath slow and steady. It's been a long time since he's encountered a demon that's not been driven mindless by a rift, and even longer since he's had to do it alone.

It's form is unresolved, shrouded in a black mist, and while Deacon could probably learn more if he looked at it directly, void take him if he does  _ that _ before he has to.

"You're a Soldier, aren't you?" the Demon purrs and with a gust of black mist the Fadewild vanishes and Deacon finds himself standing in a simulacrum of Anumturai's office. There are tendrils pulling at his mind, trying to beguile him into believing this new space is real. It almost works for a moment, but a quick scan reveals incongruities that don’t entirely line up. There’s a bookshelf with books, but none of them have titles. The desk is covered in parchment, but all of it is blank. For that matter, Anumturai hates both paper trails and mess, so the whole thing screams of incongruity and a rush job. Litasa fakes it better. 

Still, recognising the lie doesn’t guarantee his freedom. Maybe Solas cares enough about pretending that he'd come help if it turns out Deacon can't weasel his way out of this.

Yeah right.

There’s a squeak of a chair, and suddenly Anumturai’s figure is sitting behind the desk. He looks far closer to truth than the rest of the office, his brown hair just a shade too light and a scar missing where it should be pale against the olive skin of his neck. 

"Report," the figure drones, and while the voice is close, it’s jarring when not paired with the typical unblinking eye contact. Is it the Demon itself? Or just a projection playing out a scene to try and extract information. Either way, his own self awareness is one of the only advantages he has, and it wouldn’t do to lose that too early. 

"Sir," Deacon picks a false accent at random, "you're going to have to be more specific. I've got multiple ongoing missions you could be asking about. On which would you like the details of?" It’s a convincing lie, all told. There’s no reaction from the creature though, so either it can’t tell or doesn’t care.

“Your current movements,” not-Anumturai drones, shuffling some blank papers before feinting a disinterested look up. The eyes are somehow  _ too sharp _ , and it’s body almost bulges as those strange tendrils seem to scrape through his mind again.

“Oh,” the Demon gleefully shudders, not bothering with the fake voice this time. “You’re with the Herald, aren’t you.”

Deacon snaps his eyes back to the desk and tries to focus on the lack of an inkwell even though there are ink stains on the wood, and keeps his breathing steady as the walls seem to pulse and the Demon purrs. It trembles and vanishes, emerging again as a wet tongue against his ear, and while Deacon suppresses the flinch he can’t stop the sensation of revolution flowing down his limbs.

“The Elder One promised her to me,” the thing almost moans. “But you might be an acceptable substitute. At least to get close.”

Deacon swallows, but keeps his eyes forward. If that’s the deal this Demon made, it’s going to be very disappointed. Offering possession of a body you don’t have under your control has a tendency to backfire, no matter how powerful this Elder One presumes themselves to be.  _ Possession takes energy _ , Litasa's voice echoes in his mind,  _ the less they have, the better off you'll be _ . The Fade works the way you think it does, and the straps of Deacon's knives tug gently against his thighs. As long as he can keep his wits, he has options.

“I suppose you’ll want my body then," he muses. "Ride me home and then explode like some demented pinyata."

“Ha!" the thing scoffs, "your body is useless. All I need is your face."

Well that's a little harder to plan around, given that Deacon has no idea what it means.

"And I won't be denied!" the thing roars in his ear. Deacon moves instinctively, knives drawn in a second, only to find that the Demon has become spindly and pressed itself into a corner.

“Fine then,” it hisses, “we'll do this the hard way, but you will show me  **what you are** !” The office detonates with an explosive screech, knocking Deacon backwards. One knife is lost in the effort to catch himself, but despite the sweat that now coats his palms, his grip on the other remains firm. He lays a moment, listening as rubble seemingly falls around him, and when it stops he pulls himself to his feet amidst the ruins of the Conclave.

Unlike the office, this imitation is decidedly poor. The Demon's filled the blast area with the burnt husks of people, charred impressions of agony deliberately posed to invite fear. But there weren't any bodies this close to the explosion epicenter, they were all blown outwards, found crushed under scorched rocks without a hint of fire touching them and he  _ knows _ because he was desperately searching them for—

"Is this how you found her?" one of the husks asks. It's stretched back in a kneeling position, blackened teeth displayed with a wail. The jaw doesn't actually move, of course, the muscles brittle enough that any attempt would simply snap off the jaw. Puppet, rather than Demon proper, he thinks.

"Deacon!" something screams, with a voice so mangled he can barely tell it's supposed to be Litasa. "Deacon, help me!" He turns to find hands pushing out of the debris, slowly dragging a mangled body. It's covered in enough charred flesh and soot that he can't tell what colour it's skin is supposed to be, but even without it's still clearly not Her. The eyes are too dark and too wide, the jawline receded, the cheekbones too low, and there's no facial tattoos at all and  _ no good Dwarf gets killed by falling rocks. _

"Help me," it says again, but Deacon just turns and walks away.

"Curious, how curious," the Demon approaches, taking Litasa's form directly this time. It's got all the same problems as the puppet, but without the soot the whole thing just gets worse. The Demon's added some pink to the grey of her skin, and while Deacon knows that makes it closer to a normal skin tone, on Litasa it just looks wrong. "You care so much," the Demon muses, "and yet this shape means nothing."

Litasa has many shapes, Deacon could say. I'd care if you were doing it right, he could also say. But the Demon is wrong and twisted, and  _ forgot Litasa's tattoos _ , so how it could manage to fool anyone is a mystery.

The Demon dismisses the Conclave with a frustrated hiss, returning them to the black green void of the Fadewild. The blade has vanished from his hand, but it only takes a moment of concentration before he can feel it's weight against his leg again. A fog creeps in from the shadows, a sourceless light illuminating silhouettes. One in particular, tall and bulky with the horns of the Qunari, walks forward and emerges to reveal a close-enough version of Verash.

"How about this shape?" not-Verash asks, "will it help me know you?"

He can't quite tell if it's a puppet, but it only takes a few moments of silence before the Demon calls forward another one of the silhouettes. It's just the fake Litasa again, so Deacon takes a moment to study the light as it reflects off Verash's near black horns. It flickers as if it were moving, even though the light doesn't seem to be coming from anywhere specific.

"How about this?" not-Verash tries to make eye contact as not-Litasa slits his throat, but that just brings even more incongruity. The angle of the cut matches the angle of the knife, but while Litasa is tall for an elf she's easily a head and a half shorter than Verash, so the illusion contorts wildly trying to accommodate the impossible hand position.

Plus, if Litasa ever had to kill Verash, she'd do it to his face. Not from behind.

"What are you?" the Demon asks from the sidelines, incredulous and without mimicry for once. "You see this and are not surprised–"

"Don't you know what she can do?" Franchesca asks, and Deacon feels something like dread pooling in his stomach. She's somewhere behind him, and while he's not particularly keen on hostiles at his back, he doesn't want to see her. If he looks, there's a chance those judgemental eyes will be glaring back at him, filled with fury and revulsion.

"Don't you know what she's done to us?" Franchesca spots like the words are bile in her mouth. Deacon turns only to freeze when he sees what's been speaking.

Uraidon had always been pale, a sickly pallor barely balanced out by curled black locks and the ease at which he blushed. Death did not really improve anything on that front.

He stands like they'd found him, blood dripping down his chin, chest carved open just like it was. Like Litasa had done. She’d cracked his ribs and ripped his chest wide open like it was a shell she had to get through, and  _ Maker take him  _ this is the closest to accurate this Demon has come. Deacon can remember approaching in Litasa's wake and finding the body cold but blood only starting to dry. Remembers Franchesca weeping over the husk of her lover, cursing Litasa’s name and swearing vengeance.

Uraidon had been killed with his own blade. They’d found it amidst the corpses of the crew they’d sent to try and bring her  _ back _ , and they were all like that. Chests wrenched open, always with weapons, never magic.

Deacon had made a choice that day. A choice he cannot regret no matter how bloodsoaked the grounds became.

“ **Don’t you know what she does to the ones she cares about** ?” Uraidon screeches, an agonised howl echoing into the Fadewilds, but Deacon knows what it means to choose: his Litasa, his Deathbringer, and he’d choose her again every single time.

Every. Single. Time.

“She’s Dangerous.” A new demonic voice purrs, and Deacon feels bile rise in his throat as he looks upon The Traitor. “A Monster,” she lilts, strolling around Uraidon’s still moving flesh, breath wheezing despite the lack of working lungs. “Oh but she’s so powerful,” the Demon moans, and Deacon’s revulsion burns away with the hot flare of rage, “I’m going to enjoy having her so much.”

“You won’t lay a fucking finger on her,” he growls, knives sliding easily into his hands, though he doesn’t know if he’s talking to the Demon or the Traitor.

“And what are you going to do about it boy?” the Demon cackles, “trapped here in the Fade with me?” Deacon clenches the knives harder, and shifts onto the balls of his feet.

“You have to be careful,” a new voice echoes, far too timid to be the Demon, startling enough that he rocks back to flat-footed. “It can’t take your face because it’s  _ your _ dream, but it can keep you here until the Templars come to take you.”

“Shut up, worm!” the Demon screeches but Deacon turns his attention to the small wisp of a boy, kneeling close in ragged leathers. A different kind of Fade Creature, he assumes, given that he’s at least fairly certain he’s never seen this particular face before.

“I heard the screaming,” the Boy says, “I came to help.”

“Get out of here,  _ Thing _ !” the Demon roars, but makes no move to approach or attack either of them. It hasn’t made a move to touch him at all, menacing without threatening, and Deacon takes a moment to let a slow chuckle echo through his chest.

“That Demon. It’s Envy, isn’t it?”

“It yearns for things it cannot have, coveting, cowering, conquering from the shadows. It wants the light, but can’t touch it, and She shines so ever brightly.”

“Fantastic,” Deacon mutters, assuming that means yes. “Any bright ideas about how I get out of this?”

“It’s your dream,” the Boy says, “you have to wake up.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve had to do that, any advice would be—”

_ No _ , the voice echoes from elsewhere,  _ you need to  _ **_wake up_ ** .

Deacon’s eyes snap open and he absolutely doesn’t let out a startled yelp at seeing the same strange Fade Boy leaning over his now waking form.

He’s a  _ fucking _ professional, and professionals do not yelp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
>  **Elvhen**  
>  Amelanen! - variant of amelan, meaning guardian, but plural. So: Guards!
> 
> The future stuff will only be one chapter, I told myself. Maybe two if we intercut with Deacon's part. I am now at the fourth chapter in a row of nothing but future timeline, so we have that to look forward to. Thanks to MissyStrange for the editing help. Hope to see you at the next one!


	4. Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Previously on DWoof:**  
>  _No_ , the voice echoes from elsewhere, _you need to wake up_. Deacon’s eyes snap open and he absolutely doesn’t let out a startled yelp at seeing the same strange Fade Boy leaning over his now waking form.
> 
> He’s a fucking professional, and professionals do not yelp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have wonderful news! This chapter has helpfully been betaed by antebellum13. All praise to her for dealing with my grammar mistakes.
> 
> A quick warning, there's a brief description of a panic/anxiety attack in the first chunk of this chapter. If you're sensitive to that sort of thing it starts at the line 'hey Dorian look at me' and ends at 'we're going to need to make a fire' - nothing much will be lost skipping over it.
> 
> About the language Dickface speaks: I've utilised a modified version of the Russian alphabet to create it, but it is entirely a constructed language. But RosemaryBagels, you might say, that's so much effort to go to for a fanfic why not just use google translate? Well I could, but that means I couldn't BLATANTLY LIE about what the correct translations are! ;) 
> 
> A full, correct, and complete dictionary will be posted when this story is finished, but if you're reading through this for the first time I urge you not to go cross reference things. It'll be plot relevant when those lies come to the forefront, I promise you. Happy Hunting!~~

* * *

They make camp that evening in what might have been a small town before the whatever exactly happened to the Veil actually happened. There’s not much left to it, but there’s a structure with close to four stone walls near enough to a riverbed that Dorian thinks it once might have been a mill. There’s no roof, of course that’d be too much to ask for, but Ellana says the walls are sturdy enough, and it’s the most cover they’re going to be getting without riding for several more hours.

No one wants to do that.

There’s plenty around for the horses to eat, but less in the way of people food, which Dorian should probably be more concerned about, but now that the adrenaline has faded all he feels is exhaustion. Hope sits calmly in one of his hands, seemingly unbothered by the sparks that have started trailing from his fingertips again. The pounding in his head has only increased and his hands ache from gripping the reins.

“Here,” Mother Giselle hands him a waterskin, “this will help.” It’s only after he’s drunk about half its contents that he realises how thirsty he is, but after a few more swallows he forces himself to stop.

“We should be rationing this, shouldn’t we?”

“There is a river right there,” Giselle gestures. “Water, right now, is one of the few things we have in abundance. Take as much as you need.” That makes a fair amount of sense, but Dorian still feels guilty. He takes another sip and then hands it back, Giselle smiling and settling back on her knees.

There’s a hushed argument going on just outside their shelter, discussing traps and the possibilities of the river having fish, but from the little Dorian can properly pick up the limit mostly seems to be supplies, rather than ability. Most traps Krem knows how to make require wire. They could catch fish easily with a net, but that’s something they don’t have. Varric may have Bianca, but only has 5 bolts for her.

They have four waterskins between the six of them. There are only two bedrolls. No one has a fire starting kit, though Dorian supposes given that they’ve got two mages that matters less.

“Don’t waste your bolts on fish,” Ellana tells Varric in an exasperated tone of voice.

“It’s the best idea we’ve got, and I’m fairly confident I’ll at least hit something,” Varric responds.

“Or just lose the bolts,” Krem points out.

“I can catch fish,” Ellana says.

“I’m not particularly enthused about magic crap touching something I’m going to eat,” Bull grumbles.

“Then don’t eat it then,” Ellana sighs. Bull growls, but gives up the argument. “I’ll go scout then,” he says, “see if there’s anything nearby worth scavenging.”

“No one’s going anywhere alone,” Ellana stresses. “Take someone with you.”

“I’ll go,” Varric volunteers, “I need to stretch my legs after spending so much time on that thing,” he waves to his horse with distaste.

“Sure,” Bull groans. “Let’s go.”

There are a few murmured words between Ellana and Krem after that, but then it’s mostly quiet, and Dorian finds himself dozing off while sitting up. He snaps to attention when Ellana puts a hand on his shoulder, several blocks of ice with fish frozen in them beside her on the ground. 

“Stay awake for just a little longer,” she tells him, “at least until we get food in you.” That makes sense, but his throat is dry and his hands crackle and it feels like his bones are too big for his skin and something of that must show because Ellana is kneeling in front of him, free hand drifting up to his face. She's almost haloed in pink from the light of Curiosity, but Duty seems to have wandered off somewhere.

“Hey Dorian. Dorian. Look at me. I need you to breathe, okay?"

Has he not been doing that? Apparently he hasn't, because the breath he pulls in feels like sweet relief, but too hot, almost like it's sticking in his lungs, and that's worse than the twisting drowning sensation of casting because he can almost feel the fluid dripping inside his lungs–

"Dorian I need you to breathe with me," Ellana's got one of his hands now and is pressing it to her chest. "In. And out." She exaggerates the chest motions, and Dorian finds himself gasping to follow along. "In. And out. In. And out."

Eventually he manages to start breathing properly again, and when he looks up Ellana's got a smile on her face like he's done something precious. It's hard to look at, but Dorian also doesn't want to look away, afraid if he does he'll come unmoored again. 

Abruptly he realises his hand is still across her chest and he jerks it back reflexively, but Ellana is still all smiles and grabs that hand with her own instead.

"We're going to need to make a fire," she says. "Is that going to be alright?"

Heat, but dry heat, as long as it isn't damp. "That should be fine," he croaks, annoyed by how rough his voice sounds. Ellana hands him a now refilled waterskin and he drinks greedily.

Ellana had fully thawed out the fish, and Krem gotten most of the way through gutting them, by the time Varric and Bull get back, Varric with an armful of firewood and Bull with an armful of fruits, some apples and some smaller purple things Dorian doesn't recognise. A portion of saddlebag is cleared out for the fruits, while the wood goes in a pile, and soon they're cooking.

Plain fire-cooked fish is not Dorian's particular meal of choice, but it's warm and it fills something that's been gnawing away uncertainly within him.

They can't afford to keep the fire going overnight, so the question soon becomes one of sleeping arrangements. Mother Giselle is getting one of the bedrolls, everyone except her agrees, and she graciously steps out of the argument. Krem volunteers Ellana, who refuses out of hand, Varric comments that he won't complain if it's not him, even if everyone knows he will tomorrow, and Bull shoots Dorian a look as if he should be saying something, but Dorian is at this point mostly just trying to stay awake. The temperature drops rapidly with the loss of sunlight, so everyone's going to be huddled together for warmth anyway, thus compromises are made. Then talk of a nightwatch comes up, and shift rotations and posting people outside, and eventually Ellana just shapeshifts into a bronto and lays across the doorway so no one can leave.

"The fuck?" Bull whispers. "You could do this the whole time? Why not before."

"Brontos are tough, but not fast," Varric explains. "I don't think it would have helped."

Bull grumbles, but soon quiets. 

Dorian ends up in the dirt, pressed against Bronto-Ellana's side, and she offers him a leg to rest his head upon. He's too exhausted to think through all the reasons that might be weird, so he just lets himself curl against her, and falls asleep basically instantly.

He dreams that night that he's a child on a beach filled with an endless number of twinkling yellow fireflies. He runs after them, hands outstretched to catch just a single one and hold its warmth, but they always seem to slip away. Despite that, he never loses hope of holding one of the delicate creatures in his bare hands.

He wakes gently, back stiff, but not as much as it could be, and even though the lack of Veil is still making his head spin, it seems easier to handle it now.

"Here," Krem hands him a couple of the purple fruits, "these won't keep, so we'd better eat them now."

The skin of the fruits are strangely bitter, but the inside flesh is sweet, and while it's not entirely a filling breakfast, it's enough to get Dorian's brain slowly kicking back on.

Time magic, Dorian thinks as he munches on the second piece of fruit, shouldn't have worked at all, but somehow it did with the breach. Maybe with the Veil gone they could find a way to reverse the whole thing. Go back. Ensure whatever did this doesn't happen. Though admittedly that might not be possible without whatever amulet Gereon used to fling them forward in the first place.

"Mage," Bull growls, "keep the sparks down," and Dorian looks at his hands to see they're coated in lightning again.

"Lay off, Chief," Krem sighs, "all mages were like that when the Veil fell."

"Ellana isn't," Bull says, and suddenly Dorian realises he has no idea where she is. Varric is still wrapped up in bedroll pretending to be dead to the world, but Giselle is gone also. Dorian stands slowly, and feels steadier on his feet than he did yesterday. Good.

"Well Ellana's…" weird. And strange. And powerful. And gone.

"If you're going to argue, can you do it elsewhere?" Varric grumbles.

"No. We have to move soon," Bull says. "You should get up. And eat."

"Fine," Varric sits up with a crack of a yawn, and Krem hands him a few of the same purple fruits. Dorian abruptly realises he has to pee, and assumes now is as good a time as any to take care of that problem.

When he comes back he sees Ellana, hair damp from assumedly bathing, securing saddles on the horses. She's still surrounded by the flock of Curioctopi, who seem very intent on playing with her wet hair, but she pays them no mind. Hope, Dorian notes, had settled comfortably onto the head of his horse. He takes a quick look around for Patience, and almost doesn't spot them until he catches sight of burning red eyes coming from a pile of underbrush. Those eyes bore into him, and Dorian can't suppress a shudder. No wonder Bull feels ill at ease, if that thing's been following him around.

"Good to see you awake," Ellana says, with a cheerfulness that doesn't seem to reach her face.

"Did you get any sleep at all?" Dorian asks, and Ellana chuckles.

"I got some, but probably not enough. This," she waves her hand upwards at the Fade pouring through the sky, "isn't especially easy for me to handle."

Dorian looks down to the sparks upon his fingers and then back up to her sleepless face. Wonders if it was dreams or simply thoughts of dreams that kept her up. “You don’t seem to be having this problem, at least.” He waves an electrified hand.

“Oh I _am_ ,” Ellana grumbles, “it’s just less noticeable.”

“You can’t exactly hide lightning,” Dorian frowns.

“No, I meant… I’m leaking mana. Just like you are.”

“I get that,” he elaborates, “I just don’t understand why it’s always lightning.” Ellana cocks her head to the side and stares at him like he’s a puzzle she’s trying to figure out.

“Because it’s your base mana,” she states.

“My what now?”

“Your… Did you never do that thing as a child? Where you’d sit and let your magic flow freely just to see what it was most inclined to do?” she asks.

His magic had been exceptionally volatile when it first appeared. Had doing that not been explicitly discouraged, Dorian’s fairly sure something would have exploded. “That sounds like a fantastic way to get something lit on fire.”

“It’s perfectly safe,” Ellana states. “Well, with other things, maybe not lightning so much, but I’ve handled it before. I know what precautions we’d need to take.”

“Why would we…” Dorian trails off. “You think it’d help with my control.”

“Absolutely. Knowing how your mana behaves when there’s nothing acting on it allows for a deeper understanding and also harnessing potential. And right now we need to recalibrate, because again,” she waves a hand at the Fade Sky.

“Well,” Dorian muses, looking at the lightning spilling through his fingers, “I guess it can’t hurt to give it a shot.”

“Great,” Ellana smiles, “I’ll… scrounge around a little to find the things we’ll need.”

Dorian nods, and the two stand in amiable silence for several moments, before Mother Giselle approaches them. "We are moving on, yes?" she asks, her hair as damp as Ellana’s.

"We can't afford to linger," Ellana confirms, and goes back to checking saddles.

With Varric now awake, it doesn’t take them long to dismantle the camp. They scatter the ash from last night's campfire as best they can, drink more than they need and then refill the waterskins, because who knows how long it'll be until there's water again, but with very little time they're saddled up and headed northwards, fleeing towards the unknown.

* * *

The Fade Boy is still looking over Deacon after he blinks several times. He can tell that Rainier's drawn his sword in the periphery, as well as the Evanuris stirred into wakefulness, but Deacon can't spare much more than an idle thought towards them.

"What the fuck are you?" he snarls, tongue sliding around an Antivan lilt and knives coming easily to his hands, his real knives this time, and it's only a moment before he's got them at the creature's throat. "Did you follow me here?"

The Fade Boy seems startled but not overly concerned. "Envy sent the Templars after you," it says, "I came to help."

"That doesn't answer the fucking question," Deacon growls, pressing enough with the knife that the kid can feel it without quite breaking the skin.

"I am me," the kid says, "I want to–"

He feels physical enough when Deacon punches him in the throat, starts coughing, trying to make the airways work properly, but Deacon really can't take the chance that whatever the kid is piggybacked his way out of the Fade through Deacon's head, and the blade will fall so swiftly–

"Deacon!" Solas snaps, grabbing his wrist with a strength that would seem uncharacteristic if Deacon didn't know what he was, and a burning fury under those eyes. Deacon wants to meet that challenge, to fight back, but he forces himself down, keeps the knowledge off his face, allows the Evanuris to step forward and take the brunt of the attack Deacon knows must be coming.

"An explanation would be nice," Rainier growls, though Deacon doesn't have the time to determine exactly where the ire is directed.

"He was in my dream, and now he's here," Deacon spits, "he's a Demon."

"That's not so certain," Solas asserts, "and if you'd allow him to explain before killing him, I'm certain something of value could be learned." That arrogant fucking prick… but Deacon reluctantly sheaths his knives.

"On your head be it," he mutters to Solas, who turns his attention to the Fade Creature.

"I'm Cole," the thing says quietly, "and I want to help. But you have to move, or the Templars are going to find you."

"Shit," Rainier groans, and when Deacon follows his eyeline to the fortress he finds light spewing from the gates, small clusters of torches headed into the wilderness. Search parties. It's only then that Deacon's mind starts stitching things together.

"You said Envy had the Templars."

"Yes," the Creature responds.

"And that it was stealing faces."

"Yes."

"Shit," Rainier says again, but he's not talking about the search parties this time.

"Whose face does it have right now?"

"The Lord Seeker."

"Fenhedis," Solas hisses, but honestly that's just going to make Deacon's life easier.

"The Lord Seeker is a Demon? And no one fucking noticed?" Rainier exclaims.

"The Templars are distracted. The hate builds the hurt and it makes turning them Red easy. The Red ones can't think enough to question."

That's certainly concerning, but whatever the Fade Boy means will have to wait. Search parties grant an opportunity, and they're only going to get this shot once. "Hide what you can under the brush," Deacon says, gesturing at their makeshift camp. "We're getting in tonight. If there's anything you'd be sad to see gone, leave it here, it won't be getting in the door with us.”

The four of them pack up camp in near silence, shoving bedrolls and tents under various bushes. Deacon takes a quick look around to see if there are any landmarks to help them find this place again, but there really isn't much. Rainier takes his sword, but leaves the shield. The Evanuris surprises him by keeping the staff strapped to his back. The Fade Boy kicks at the dirt until it looks less like people were there. Then they silently creep into the underbrush.

The absolute dark of the forest at night is both a blessing and a curse, but the torches the search parties carry make it easier to track them. It's a simple matter to find an isolated group and get behind them, taking out members with none being the wiser. Deacon would have knocked them out, clean sweep after all, but he sees the bright red veins, and then smells it on their breath– the cold sense of curdled milk sliding down the back of his throat.

"Red Lyrium," Deacon breathes. "Good fuck, the Templars are taking Red Lyrium."

"Started with the senior members first," Cole confirms. "They took it to prove that it was safe. There are many that are unsure, untainted–"

"But their numbers dwindle," Solas finishes. Cole nods, mournful.

"Shit," Deacon sighs, but it's a simple matter to slit throats in a way that doesn't get blood on the armour. "Strip them, and then put their armour on."

"Ah," the Evanuris muses, "that's a way _in_ , I suppose."

"I know," Deacon wrenches the full helmet off one of the corpses before handing it to Solas. "Putting this on is going to suck, but you won't get in without it." He'd give Rainier a full helmet too, but the beard would just make it look stupid. And noticeable. And it's a testament, really, to how their night is going that the others follow in silence.

The bulkiest armour goes to Rainier and Deacon realises with some amusement that Solas might be broader than he is. By a smidge. Suited up they don't look too bad, but Deacon does a full check for blood anyway, and the Fade Boy helps them drag the bodies into the bushes. The only real problem is the staff.

"Can you fight without it?"

"Not comfortably, no," the Evanuris admits awkwardly, and the helmet really does him no favours. There's no way they're sneaking it in, unless…

“Do you need a disguise?” Deacon asks the Fade Boy.

“No one in the castle could see me before,” the kid muses, “and even if they did, I could make them forget.”

“Could you make them forget this?” Deacon hands the staff over, and Cole swings it experimentally.

“I don’t know if I could do it if I weren't holding it,” the Fade Boy admits. 

“You may hold it then,” Solas concedes, “as long as it makes its way back to me if a fight breaks out.”

“Sharp and smothering, the smite screams louder than the voices. She goes to flee, but the blades come faster, burning in the dark until the walls ignite. Those who can run do, but those who cannot are left to the flames,” Cole intones, slowly yet somehow all at once. “I will make sure you are not defenseless.”

"Thank you, Cole," Solas murmurs.

"We'd best get moving," Rainier says, "don't want to be anywhere near here if someone finds the bodies."

"Right," Deacon feels something settle inside him with the thought of this challenge. "Let's go face the music."

* * *

The Curiosity Spirits don't talk exactly, but they do make noise. Warbling calls like birdsong, strangle chirrups that sound more like frogs. Dorian swears at one point one of them even babbles like an actual river, but that's weird enough that he ignores it and returns his focus to the patches of grey mane between his horse's ears. For all that the sounds are inhuman, they're also sort of familiar. A sort of baby talk, that matches the way their tendrils reach to grab anything shiny or unfamiliar. They're currently gnawing on a strap of Ellana's armour, when they aren't distracted by her fingers.

Dorian is far more uncertain of the vocal capabilities of the Duty-Horse, given that he's never heard it make a sound. Then again, all of their horses have been fairly quiet on the ride so far, so Dorian's unsure if that's a Spirit thing or more of just a horse thing.

Hope seems little more than a wisp though, so he's fairly certain it can't speak, until midway through the next day's ride when it excitedly blurts out, "hey, where are we going?!"

Bull does a double take, and Krem nearly falls off his horse with shock, which has Ellana snickering, but Dorian just stares down at the small yellow glow sitting against him like it's tiny and inconsequential, somehow.

"Sparkler, is it me, or did your tagalong just sprout a voicebox?" Varric asks like he's already resigned to the fact that things are about to get weirder.

"Um," Dorian says when he realises everyone's looking at him, "I guess?"

"I'm Hope!" Hope announces, sounding nauseatingly chipper the way only the youthful can. "You've all got so many beautiful thoughts on where we're going, but none of them match! Oh! Is this the sort of adventure where the true goal was the journey along the way?"

Oh no.

"Not exactly," Varric confirms, as he's the first who gets his wits about him. "It's more fleeing for our lives than proper adventuring."

"Ah," the wisp sounds defeated, and Dorian’s heart sinks, "that explains the hope to not get caught." There’s a heavy silence.

“We have more hopes than that, I suspect,” Mother Giselle speaks softly.

“Oh certainly,” the wisp chimes, back to being chipper, “Hissrad hopes for orders he can follow, Cremisius hopes he’ll be strong enough to protect someone this time, while Varric hopes he’ll live long enough to tell this story. Giselle has faith in the Maker, but hopes he’ll intervene this time, while Dorian has hope he can send us _back_ … Back to where?” The thing doesn’t have any eyes, but if it did, Dorian is sure they would be on him. “What does that mean, Dori?”

“Well,” Dorian licks his lips, his throat suddenly dry, “Ellana and I were sent forward in time using a spell I helped design. Well, I theorised about it’s design. It shouldn’t have been possible to actually cast, but we’re here anyway so clearly it’s possible. And if I can figure out how that happened, then I could probably find a way to send us back.” It’s only speaking it out loud that Dorian feels the start of a plan coming together. A difficult task sure, but he’s never let that stop him before.

“Make it so this never happens,” Krem whispers in awe.

“What would happen to us?” Varric wonders, “would we be erased or something?”

“Worth it, if it means there’s less Fade Crap to deal with,” Bull states.

“It’ll be a project to work on amidst running for our lives!” Dorian can’t quite keep the hopeful smile out of his voice. The wisp vibrates against his chest, and Dorian has to fight the strange urge to pat it on the head, or whatever the wisp equivalent is. He refrains purely to maintain his image, and not because his fingers have started crackling with electricity again.

“Worth a try, at least,” Ellana murmurs, and there's a small smile on her face.

And with a distinctly more optimistic atmosphere, their group continues north. The Curioctopi spread out a bit, inquisitively poking at plants and rocks before chirruping and zooming back to cling to Ellana before becoming bold enough to explore again. Towards midday they find a stream and they take a moment to hydrate themselves and the horses. Krem excitedly proclaims he found potato plants, which upon further inspection do indeed reveal potatoes. Ellana wanders downstream a touch, and then crows in triumph over some tall reedy plants.

"I appreciate the enthusiasm for plantlife," Varric muses, "though I have no idea what we're celebrating this time."

"Look!" Ellana pulls out a small blade and hacks at the base of one of the plants for a moment, before it breaks off. "The bark is strong but stringy, meaning when it dries it should make long tough strands."

There's a moment of confusion before Bull gets it. "You could make rope from that," he muses.

"I could make rope from this!" she agrees.

"Is that something you've done before?" Varric wonders. "I've heard it's harder than it looks."

"I had a teacher who used it as punishment sometimes," Ellana shrugs. "Felt that repetitive tasks would help 'discipline my mind'. In reality it just made me fill their desk with snakes."

"Of course," Mother Giselle says diplomatically, trying not to smile.

"Do we have a destination in mind?" Dorian asks, as he shoves as many reeds as is feasible through his saddle.

"Yeah, it's a…" Ellana trails off. " You know, I'm completely blanking on the trade word for it." She snaps a couple times like that will jog her memory. "Anchor?"

"Waypoint," Hope helpfully chimes.

"Waypoint!" Ellana confirms. “There’s a ping a fair ways north of here that should have a working forge and some basic supplies.”

“So it’s weird Fade crap,” Bull grumbles, but Ellana simply laughs.

"It's a Dwarf thing," she winks. "You'll see when we get there.”

They make camp that evening amongst a small copse of trees. They'd encountered deer, and Varric was quick enough to take one of them down. Lucky enough to recover the bolts too. They feast well. Afterwards, as Bull holds reeds over the fire, Dorian finds himself pulled away by small pink tentacles to find Ellana making a rough circle marked off with a couple knives and a few hunks of metal.

"Not the most elegant I've had to work with," she gestures, "but these should at least loosely contain ambient electricity. Though keep in mind the radius is a bit of a guess, because I have no idea how the lack of Veil would affect this."

"Are you sure this is safe?" Dorian fidgets, nervously. He's been pretty good with not creating sparks throughout the day. At least that's the general assumption until he looks down and finds one of his hands completely coated in lightning.

"And that isn't?" Ellana huffs. "Relax Dorian, I've done this before. You won't hurt me," she adds, and there's a sincerity to her tone that causes Dorian to just… unclench. A little.

"Okay," he sighs. "Where do you want me?"

Ellana directs him to the center of the circle, and then sits in the dirt across from him just outside the circle's boundary. She's at least twenty paces away, which Dorian feels is almost unnervingly far. After a moment, Hope flits away and settles next to the Curioctopi perched in a tree overlooking the both of them.

"Have you been taught any meditation techniques?" Ellana asks, speaking just loud enough that her voice will reach him.

"Several," Dorian confirms. "None particularly effective though.”

Ellana smirks a little. "That makes sense. You're aware of how to center though? Feel your mana core?"

That is something Dorian's aware of. Without knowing at least roughly the strength of one's mana core it's easy to slip into mana burnout. That had been an unpleasant lesson in his teens that Dorian has no wish to revisit. Reaching into it now brings back the sensation that he's drowning with mana in his lungs.

"Yeah I can. Feels different without the Veil though."

"For me, everything feels skittery and oversaturated. How does it feel to you?"

"Like it's too much," Dorian barely chokes out, "like I'm drowning."

"Through the Veil your mana was like a wellspring. A cool reservoir from which you could draw only as much as you needed. But now it's a thundering river, and you're being dragged along in the current."

Yes it's that. It's exactly that. Probably better articulated than Dorian could put it himself. Ellana raises an eyebrow at him, but he can't seem to find the words, so he simply nods in agreement.

"Okay. I want you to close your eyes, and take a deep breath for me. Breathe in so you can feel it in the base of your lungs. And as you breathe out, I want you to imagine relaxing the muscles in your shoulders. Breathe in, and then relax your back. Breathe in, let your fingers go loose."

Dorian lets her slow calm, voice flow over him, and though it's awkward, with a few false starts, he eventually feels at least sort of relaxed and in touch with his breath.

"Now, I want you to think of the river. The water flows fast and the currents are strong, but I want you to picture yourself not as a being buffeted around, but rather as a stone. Solid and steady, firmly in place as the waters flow around you. They may be fast, but they'll part for you. Feel the currents as they flit past, and then let them go."

This is, admittedly, a little harder for Dorian to do. He keeps getting caught up in the meaning of the metaphor, but Ellana is patient, bringing his attention back to the breath, and back to the water. It's slightly dizzying, but he can almost feel its current against his side. 

"Take a deep breath. Breathe into your mana core. I want you to hold it for a second, and then let the currents flow."

It takes many tries before it clicks. He breathes into his mana core and it feels like his lungs are filling with it again, and he tries to keep breathing despite the sensation, but that only brings bolts of panic. Ellana's voice remains soft, a buffer against his budding frustrations. It's only after trying to ignore it fails repeatedly that he tries breathing into it instead, and suddenly he’s able to let go.

Letting the mana flow through him feels like lightning. Not the thunderstorm pain kind of way, but rather an electrifying current that sweeps through him and past him and almost carries him away. But he is a rock in this current, and when he settles enough to let it flow past him rather than against him, his mind finally feels clear. Free of the persistent fog that's been hanging over him since they arrived in this blighted future. 

"Dorian," Ellana whispers, "open your eyes."

The first thing he sees is the delighted, awe-filled smile on Ellana's face. Then he looks down and realises his entire body and the circle around him is lit up with sparks. Currents of electricity that move almost peacefully around in lines and currents, before burrowing into the ground. Ellana's put up a shield around the edges, but the circle edges are clear as lightning rapidly jumps between the metallic objects at its edge. 

It's beautiful. It's costing no mana at all. Dorian breathes and tugs the mana current just a little and watches, delighted, as the sparks rapidly increase in speed.

"I think we can work with this, yea?"

All Dorian can do is nod.

* * *

Getting into Therinfal Redoubt is ultimately trivial once they attempt it. Deacon keeps an eye on various other patrols, and makes sure they’re neither the first nor the last ones to return. The Fade Boy winks out of existence as they approach the gate, but by then they’re being hailed so Deacon decides he’ll worry about that later.

The kid manning the door clearly just had a dose of something, Lyrium or otherwise, as their eyes straight up won’t focus. They’re still paranoid as fuck though, so Deacon adds a bit more twang to his Fereldan accent, giving it an east coast flavour. Kid relaxes enough to let them inside, and Deacon remains loose as he leads their trio into a small courtyard. 

“Where do we go now?” Rainier murmurs, once they’ve made it a fair way from all the Templars he can see.

“Into the keep,” Deacon responds. “Look for the mess hall, or another gathering area. We’ll chat some people up, and try to get the details on what’s been happening recently. If we get separated, keep your cool and go with the flow. If something happens, make a ruckus and head to the stables, where we’ll meet up.”

“Right,” Rainier confirms, while Solas simply nods.

The key to staying hidden, Deacon knows, is simply to walk like you belong. With that in mind, he confidently strides into the castle, and takes a sharp turn as soon as one presents itself. They pass very few people in the hallways, all of them alone and seemingly sleep deprived, and more than one bringing on that sensation of curdled milk. They have to loop a small section of corridor to find the next main junction, and as they do Deacon spots the Fade Boy beckoning out of the corner of his eye. 

Really, no one can blame him for being curious. 

The Fade Thing leads them down a smaller passage towards what must be living quarters of some sort. The carpet on this floor muffles footsteps, which is why they have the chance to stop just out of view of a hushed conversation.

“–Maker’s hairy arsehole, Silvia,” a man snaps, seemingly exasperated.

“It’s perfectly safe,” a woman, presumably Silvia, insists. “All the senior officers have taken it. Even Ser Varnen, and she never agrees to anything.”

“Suck up to Denam all you want,” a third voice, also female states, “but taking this stuff isn’t going to earn you a promotion, it’s just going to drive you insane.”

“It’s progress!” Silvia insists, though her voice wavers a little, “It’s the edge we need to take down the mages.”

“Tell that to Charlene,” the man scoffs. “Or Isaac. Or Julien, or any of the others we’ve lost this month alone.”

“Julien was weak,” Silvia hisses, “he chose his own fate.” There’s a long pause.

“What the fuck _happened_ to you?” the other woman whispers. “You know, I can remember a time, less than three years ago, when you bawled your eyes out because a mage hanged themselves rather than face their harrowing. _She_ got sympathy but one of our brothers doesn’t for doing the same damn thing? Where did the person go who felt pain at needless death?”

“I…” Silvia hesitates. “If everyone would just follow orders, there wouldn’t _be_ needless death,” she finally says.

“Are you sure about that?” the man asks. “Because I’m not.”

“In the absence of the Maker we must trust in our leaders,” Silvia recites, “and I’ll not hear anything else.” There’s the rustle and squeak of fabric and floorboards as Silvia leaves the conversation. Deacon tenses for a moment as she walks past them, but her eyes seem to slide over them all, as if they’re wearing _look-not-at-me_ , and Deacon feels the slight brush of the Fade Boy at his elbow.

“Well that could have gone better,” the man sighs.

“No shit. Still, she raised a point. We don’t exactly have a lot of options here.”

“You could always defect,” Deacon slides around the corner and into the conversation, trying not to smirk when the both of them startle. Broadens his accent as well, so it could be Fereldan could be Marcher. “There are other options.” The man, dark skinned with a poof of black hair resting gangly on his head, pulls a hand to the pommel of a small blade, but doesn't draw it. The woman, with hair curled into a tight bun and bronze skin similar to Deacon's own, steps forward to slightly shield the other, but then frowns in realisation.

"You're… not from here, are you."

"Nope," Deacon confirms settling back against a nearby wall. He can practically feel Rainier and the Evanuris vibrating with tension, hidden just around the corner Deacon casually leans against.

"What other options?" the woman scoffs.

"Well if Lyrium's all that matters, the Carta always needs muscle. Get in with the right branch, and they'll make sure you get the good stuff, rather than this toxic red crap. If it's more a concern of faith, I'm positive the Chantry would welcome you back. Even in small numbers, such dissent would show that there are some still guided by the Maker and stand to protect, rather than slaughter. But if you're asking in a moral sense, or even looking to pragmatism… well there's always the Inquisition."

“You think we have a moral duty to close the Breach?” the man asks.

“I think you have a duty to defend the innocent. Which I suppose you could make an argument you’re doing, if you consider the Templar order part of the problem and thus have chosen to remove yourselves from the equation. Somehow, I doubt that’s the line of thought.”

“ **We** are not part of the problem,” the woman hisses.

“Well we aren’t exactly part of the solution stuck here, so what else could we be?” the man snaps back.

“We are not responsible for the decisions of our leaders,” she insists.

“Do we take no responsibility for our own actions then?” the man retaliates. “Shall we cower behind the powerful because it’s easy? How does that make us any better than what we defected to destroy?”

“We still have honour,” the woman enthuses. “Without that, what are we?”

“Good people,” he states. “Or at least we have the potential to be.”

The woman sighs, running a slow hand down her face. After a long moment she sighs, and turns back to Deacon. “My apologies, that wasn’t a public conversation. My name is Yenna, and this is Polluk. Who the fuck are you, and how did you get in here.” She’s attempting an accusatory tone, but the cracks in the ruse show that she’s mostly trying to keep herself calm. One of Deacon’s knives presses uncomfortably into his shin as he pushes himself away from the wall and towards the two Templars.

“My name is Deacon,” he says, adding gravitas to his voice. “I was sent by the Herald of Andraste, and I’m here looking for righteous souls to help save the world from demons and madness.”

“Oh,” Yenna seems slightly taken aback, “you’re with the Inquisition.”

“Barris said he was going to reach out to them,” Polluk states, “but I’d never thought they’d actually…” he waves a vague hand at Deacon’s general presence.

“The Commander of our forces served as Knight-Captain in Kirkwall,” both Yenna and Polluk twitch at the name, “and he’s raised a lot of concern about the order’s whereabouts, in addition to the wellbeing of everyone stationed here. Given what we’ve seen, I’d say that concern is warranted.” Deacon’s point is emphasised when a loud scream echoes in the distance followed by several voices shouting. 

“Right,” Yenna whispers, “I know where Barris is stationed.”

“Did you come alone?” Polluk asks.

“Nah,” Deacon shrugs, “but the rest of my team don’t know how to enter conversations without making it look like they were just eavesdropping.” At this prompting both Rainier and the Evanuris slide into view.

Yenna sighs, before nodding. “Alright.” She heads down the corridor before turning right. “Please follow me.”

* * *

When she dreams, she's in a cell.

It's roomy, as far as accommodations meant to imprison go. She's got a pitcher of water, and a wooden mug. There's a small cot leaning against the far wall that only faintly smells of mildew and is thankfully free of mice. There are no torches, but the one just out of arms reach in the hallway does a decent job of lighting the place.

It's a sturdy cell too. The bars, made of a nevarrite alloy that proved slightly more resistant to magic than most, are built into the floors and ceilings rather than being clumsily bolted to them. The door’s hinges are reinforced, and the entire thing is held in place by a heavy bar, locked far enough down the wall that no lockpicking hands could reach it. There are no windows. The stone walls are thick and stable, imported granite to provide extra durability.

"I’m concerned," Fear says from the other side of the bars, "that you put yourself here."

Dickface stares blankly past Fear's shoulder, and says nothing.

"You were afraid and wanted somewhere safe, I get that, but why here?” There’s no malice in its voice. Were it not what it is, Dickface might even call it kind. “I suppose you were here long enough for it to become familiar," they muse. "But familiar doesn’t mean _safe_."

Dickface flinches a little and the thing croons, almost in apology, before continuing on.

“The stone here liked you. In the real world of course, stone in the Fade doesn’t exactly feel the same. But regardless, we both know this prison would not hold you if you actually wanted to leave.”

The torch flickers brightly out of the corner of her eye, but the presence of Fear makes the whole world seem dim.

“And you could leave, you know.” That’s definitely sympathy radiating out of its voice, even though Dickface doesn’t want to hear it. “Blast the walls open, or shapeshift into something small enough to escape these cracks.”

“What’s the point,” Dickface’s throat creaks, even as she firmly doesn’t look. “You’d only follow.”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t,” it sighs as chains rattle and there’s an uncomfortable clang. Finally Dickface decides to look over her visitor. It’s hooded and draped in layers of dark grey fabric, frayed, tattered, and all fluttering in some unfelt wind. It’s only sort of humanoid, with its head not quite over its shoulders and at least one too many hands poking through the cloth strips, but there’s one visible wrist that draws her attention. Its skin is dark grey, darker than even the darkest Qunari, and that makes the manacle strapped around it almost shine silver. It’s a solid band, no obvious locks, and the chain is smooth too as it wraps around the bars of her cell. 

Fear tugs once more, for emphasis. “You see I am very much trapped here.”

“This prison would not hold you if you actually wanted to leave,” Dickface quotes.

Fear chuckles, the chains rattling as they shift. “It’s kind of you to believe that,” it sighs, “but there’s no Veil to hold you down anymore. Nothing to hold you back.”

Dickface resists the urge to flinch, and forces herself to look away from the dark void where its face would be. 

“Oh da’lin,” they croon, “there’s nothing holding you back except for me, is there? And I’m not doing a very good job at making you less scared.”

“You want me to be _less_ scared?” Dickface scoffs.

“You’d be so much,” Fear almost swoons, as the ambient light continues to dim, “oh you’d be so beautiful. I want you to let me go.”

Without the Veil it takes a little longer to find the dream’s center. But after a few silent moments it’s easy enough to dissolve the chains where they wrap around her prison bars, leaving the gleaming silver cuff around a strange gnarled hand.

“There. You’re free to go,” Dickface keeps her voice cold, but Fear actually has the gaul to laugh.

“Mariposa, please. If it were that easy, I’d have done it myself,” and then it phases through the bars and pushes hard into her space, so much that she’s backing up into the nearest wall. There’s nothing under that hood at all, only an inky blackness that seems to draw all light. “You need to _let me go_ ,” it insists, voice growing ragged.

“No!” Dickface shouts, using her newfound power over the dream to both shove the demon back and blast through the wall behind her, which she comfortably steps through even though she’s technically standing on open air.

“Coward!” Fear howls, as she leaves it behind. “Тчъанэж! You cannot run forever!”

“Just fuckin watch me,” Dickface mutters, before heading into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  **Ившидагъядн (Evsheedagyadn)**  
>  Тчъанэж, _(tchanezh)_ : Exiled
> 
>  **Antivan**  
>  _Mariposa_ : Butterfly
> 
> Thanks to MissyStrange, @missystrange1 on twitter, for the editing help with this chapter. I've got enough of a running head start that I'm committing to monthly chapters, unless either my mental health tanks or I get so far ahead that waiting seems redundant. But assuming any of the universe remains predictable, I'll see you again in January. Thanks!


	5. Øчъикоъй

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Øчъикоъй - Aichikoj (where j is a very soft y sound) - Little Trickster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess whose abusive parents decided that now is a great time to get in contact! :D *screaming internally*
> 
> December sucked, but I'm fine and back on track now. Give praise to @missystrange1 for telling me to rewrite mediocre scenes and antebellum13 for sorting through my mess of grammatical errors.

* * *

When Dorian wakes up the next morning, his hands are covered in sparks again. The fog swells in his head and there’s water in his lungs rising with the panic, but he places his hands firmly on the ground and tries to think about being a stone which water passes around.

It takes a little while, but when he’s able to breathe clearly he opens his eyes to find two perfectly normal non sparking hands. This whole running for his life business has done nothing good to his nails…

“Dorian.” Krem’s voice is sharp but not unkind. He’s holding out what appears to be a cooked potato. “Won’t taste amazing, but it’s hot.” While it’s not a particularly enticing meal, it beats anything he’s been forced to eat at one of Magister Silea’s soirees, so he only somewhat begrudgingly scarfs it down. His legs burn where the saddle was chafing, and not for the first time he wishes he knew how to heal anything more complex than a small scrape. 

He finds Ellana easily enough, one of the Curioctopi tangling itself in her hair as she stares vacantly northward, where darkening clouds are starting to form. She looks exhausted.

"You do know that glaring at the clouds won't make them go away." He's not entirely certain what sort of response he expected but when Ellana doesn't even react to the remark, he gives her a closer inspection. It's the eyes, he decides as he steps fully into her view to no reaction at all. He can tell something's off because of the eyes. 

"Ellana? You doing ok?" Still nothing. The pink spirit in her hair tugs sharply, and she jerks like she's been slapped back into herself.

"Dorian! Hi! Glad you're awake. We should be ready to head out pretty soon, but we could use your help disassembling the атøмюхеъ." She pauses for a moment, figuring out where her words went weird. "The camp. We could use your help disassembling the camp."

"Did you get _any_ sleep last night?" Dorian jokes, before the uncertainty can sweep in.

Ellana frowns at him before shrugging. "Apparently not enough. I'll get the rope weaving started today, that's basically the same thing. C'mon, let's get things packed up so we can get moving." She slaps a friendly hand against his shoulder before heading towards the horses.

The clouds look even darker when Dorian glances at the horizon. Hopefully it's nothing.

They're back on their horses and headed north again without much delay. Dorian can't see Patience and the Curioctopi seem to have spread out a bit, but Hope nestles close to his elbow. It's warm against the chill winds of the morning.

"I know I've no right to complain, Pointy," Varric grumbles, "but did you have to grab the most uncomfortable saddles when planning this getaway?"

"I second that complaint," Dorian adds.

"My apologies, messeres." Krem manages to pull a semi-formal bow whilst on horseback. "Comfort wasn't high on the priority list amidst saving our lives. Perhaps our armed pursuit would slow long enough to let us fetch better ones?"

"You know for sure they still follow our trail?" Mother Giselle asks.

"They do," Ellana states.

"Saw smoke with the sunrise," Bull adds. "They're tracking us, but keeping a distance."

“Yeah about that,” Varric cuts in, “any ideas on what exactly  _ is _ chasing us?”

Ellana sighs. “I think it’s a Prophet,” she says reluctantly, and Dorian feels Hope settle closer as a shudder runs through him.

“A prophet of whom?” Mother Giselle asks, but Ellana waves a dismissing hand. 

“Not like that, it’s… Have any of you heard of the Lady of Prophecy?” Dorian hasn’t, but by the sharp inhale from Varric, someone clearly has. “Yes well,” Ellana continues, “my best guess is that Deacon freaked the fuck out when I dissapeared, and made a stupid ass deal with Her in order to gain some info about when we’d appear again.”

“Yeah that about sums it up,” Varric acknowledges.

“Неъвдуюсаъёвяднз,” Ellana curses. “Right. Okay. Well, the Lady of Prophecy is dangerous and more than a little insane. Now admittedly any reliable knowledge on her is a bit fragmented, but from the little I know, she apparently had a habit of… leaving little pieces of her essence inside followers, which would let her look out of their eyes basically whenever. Those she favoured she’d give a bit more to, so they could talk to her, and in certain cases she might even share her foresight to help them out a bit. Those high level followers were called Prophets. Or that’s the translated term at least.”

“You’re saying she could have been watching us through Harding?” Krem sounds horrified. 

“Stupid Fade,” Bull growls. "Even makes possession worse."

"A connection to the Lady would probably make you immune to your standard possession," Ellana muses, "for all that it leaves you extremely vulnerable to her. Not the point–" She snaps back into focus. "The point is that unless she takes direct control of Harding, which she probably can't do without leaving her prime body vulnerable, she has next to no direct influence. With any luck, by the time someone competent has caught up with us, Dorian will have a way to reverse the time spell."

"Right." Krem nods. "Anything we can do to help with that, by the way?"

"I know the theory," Dorian states, that much he's certain of, at least. "But there's always been a problem of practical implementation. Gereon had an amulet he seemed to channel the spell through, but I'm not sure how key it is to the overall spell's function."

"Alright," Ellana agrees, "we can talk it over when we set down for the night. See if there are any holes."

"If you're going back," Varric starts, "you should probably know what got us to this point in the first place."

"I'll admit to being both apprehensive and curious–"

"No," Ellana cuts him off.

"No? This is working time magic! Think of the opportunities it presents! The chance it could grant us to undo harm," Dorian enthuses.

"I said no," Ellana stresses. "When we get back, the Lady of Prophecy is going to know that we've been here, and know what we know. And the more  _ that _ we know, the more we expect to predict, the more she'll be able to play with us by changing events.  _ Trust me _ when I say the less we know, the safer we are."

"But that can't possibly be…" Dorian trails off when he notices the stony faces of the companions around him. "What even is she? A demon? Some sort of seer?"

"She was a God once," Ellana murmurs, before pushing her teal Spirit-Horse forward, and out of conversational range.

Dorian swallows. Hard.

"Well," Varric speaks into the silence, "shit."

* * *

Ser Barris isn't exactly a commanding officer, so it's not as if he has an office. Yenna flags him down where he stands guarding an apparently empty hallway. To his credit, the man catches on quick, and ushers the lot of them into a nearby supply room, which is equally empty and cold.

"I had some hope when I sent word to Ser Rutherford," Barris begins, "but I wasn't sure he'd actually send anyone."

"We were sent on your word," Deacon lies. “We’re here to investigate, but I’d like to offer aid if we can.” His tag-alongs seem to be nodding along with him adequately, and all three of the Templars loosen a little at his words, so Deacon continues. “What can you tell me of the situation here?”

“The Lord Seeker’s orders make no sense,” Barris admits with resignation. “Many of the southern Templars perished at the conclave, our unity is one of the few things left to us. The Lord Seeker promised us honour but then… well I’m sure you’ve heard of the disgrace shown at Val Royeaux. We had a chance to accept our duty that day, but instead we were marched here, ignoring the Breach and bleeding numbers.”

“You’re losing many to the Red Lyrium, then?” Deacon asks. 

“Some,” Barris shrugs. “Not many, if Ser Denam is to be believed, but there’s more and more reason to doubt our superiors. No, the Lord Seeker often sends out patrols, many of which do not return. We’ve lost over a third of our numbers since our arrival.”

“Shit,” Polluk hisses.

“I didn’t realise it was that bad,” Yenna murmurs.

“What would you say is the duty of a Templar?” Deacon asks.

“To protect all peoples from the dangers of magic,” Barris answers without hesitation. “As much as I’d like to leave to help seal the breach, there are many here who feel they can’t abandon their orders. I wish I could say there’s a chance the Lord Seeker would speak to you, but he seems… beyond reason.”

“I’d like to try,” Deacon says, noting how the proper Templars subtly relax, while his entourage tenses up. “Is there a place we could find him?”

“I can take you to his office,” Barris confirms. “Though travelling in such large numbers might attract suspicion.”

“Of course it would,” Rainier mutters.

“Yenna, Polluk, thank you so much for your help,” Deacon says with a little sweetness added to his voice. “Why don’t you take my comrades and start a gathering in the great hall? I’d like the chance to speak to as many people as possible before we leave.”

“You mean to make a speech?” Barris asks.

“The Templars should know their options. Should know that there’s a cause worth fighting for.”

“Deacon…” Solas’ hand is sharp where it grips his elbow, “are you sure this is wise?”

“Trust me,” Deacon makes direct eye contact with the Evanuris before turning back to the group, “Ser Barris and I are just going to have a friendly conversation with the Lord Seeker. See if we can convince him that the Breach is a threat worth taking seriously.”

“Alright,” Yenna says with a nod, “we’ll see what folks we can round up.”

They leave the room staggered. Yenna with Solas, and Polluk with Rainier. As the others head out, Deacon catches the eye of the Fade Boy, hovering along the side of the room, fingers awkwardly gripping Solas’ staff. He makes no move to follow the mage though, and instead falls in step with Barris as the three of them head out.

“You think there’s a chance you’ll convince him?” Barris murmurs.

“Won’t know until we try.”

It’s properly morning by now, and yet the hallways are still eerily silent. Deacon’s been in the ruins of castles louder than this. The door to the Seeker’s office is heavy, and while it's unguarded there’s a prickling on the back of Deacon’s tongue. Barris knocks on the door to no reply, but when he reaches for the handle, Deacon catches his wrist.

“Do me a favour, and Cleanse it first?”

The Templar gives him an odd look, but obliges. Barris probably couldn’t feel the presence of a rune beforehand, but he certainly noticed as it vanished. The door’s locked conventionally as well, of course, but it’s a quick pick which Barris seemingly doesn’t object to. The office is empty when the door swings open, but the walls are coated with blood. 

“No. Oh no. What is this?” Barris gawks from the doorframe. Deacon ignores the candles and the statues and the walls covered in bloody eyeballs, and begins rifling through the papers along the far wall. There’s invoices for Red Lyrium shipments mixed in with rambling orders and scratchings that might be Ancient Tevene. Deacon pockets them all to pass to Litasa, before turning his attention to the center of the room and the map of Thedas that’s covered in red.

“What  _ is _ this?” Barris asks again, fully entering the room and letting the door swing closed behind him. 

“I don’t know,” Deacon mutters. There’s a lot of red pinpoints scattered around Therinfal Redoubt. Possibly where the Seeker was pretending to send his 'patrols' to. Orlais is underlined in red, and the map is bleeding it around Halamshiral.

“The Elder One hates her, and Envy covets that hatred,” the Fade Boy suddenly speaks. Barris doesn’t react, though at a glance Deacon isn’t sure if the man is in shock or simply can’t see him. “Empress Celene,” the Fade Boy clarifies. “The Elder one haunts her, but hides why. He’d make them all bleed Red if he could.”

Deacon turns to Barris. “Something is very wrong with the Lord Seeker.”

“This is the work of no man,” the Templar confirms. “A Demon was involved with this. Using the Red Lyrium to corrupt us from the inside, of course. How could we have  _ missed _ this?”

“It knows you’re here,” the Fade Boy whispers. “Waiting, whispers wanting into traps. It knows, but it doesn’t know. How could you be trapped by things you don't have?”

That's as unsettling as it is useful, Deacon decides as he gives the map a final look over, committing as much as he can to memory. “Gather every Templar you can in the great hall,” he orders, “and have them ready to fight. I’m going to lure it to you, and I want you to be ready.”

Barris snaps to attention and takes a deep breath, before nodding. “Understood.” He salutes, taking in the room once more before hurrying out. Deacon eyes the Fade Boy in the silence, who stares passively back.

“Could you lead me to it?” he finally asks.

“It hurts people, and you want to make it stop. I can lead you to where you need to be.”

“Right.”

He takes a moment to remove the largest pieces of Templar regalia, including the heavy breastplate. The vambraces and greaves can stay, as they provide some protection without hampering his mobility too much, or making much noise. Despite being largely unarmoured, he pays little thought to the leathers he abandoned in the forest. It’s exhilarating, being stripped bare before heading off to face a foe. He restraps his knives to his thighs carefully, as his fingers have started twitching. He shoots the Fade Boy a nod who points him down the hallway.

Deacon takes a deep breath, and then the hunt begins.

* * *

Ellana seems in and out of focus for the rest of the day. A couple of times, Dorian catches her staring vacantly at the horizon, one time even spotting tears which he dutifully pretends he doesn't see. She braids them some rudimentary rope, enough that they'll be able to make a couple traps to leave out overnight, but the work seems stimulated by occasional prods from the Curioctopi.

Not that Dorian really has any room to judge, he ends up with sparkle hands two more times over the day's ride. While the first is easy enough to dispel, the second has him flummoxed and brings with it an ever rising sense of panic that slowly drowns him until Ellana grips a hand and walks him through letting the mana river flow through him again.

It helps, but it's exhausting.

With the looming knowledge of their pursuers, when the choice is between ending the day a bit early with a guaranteed source of water or pushing on and hoping to find another one, they unanimously choose the latter.

It's late, but Krem and Bull head out to lay traps anyway. Mother Giselle does her best to get a fire going, and Varric shoots the two mages a look before saying he's going to stay and 'supervise'. Dorian takes it for the cue it is, and follows Ellana a little ways into the woods.

"Right," she says once they're out of earshot, "I'll be honest I'm uh… not exactly certain how much I'll be able to help with the whole time magic thing?"

"Well the theory is complex enough, but it does build off some fundamentals."

"Fundamentals that I don't know."

"I know that Tevinter's schooling in regards to magics can seem a little intimidating–"

"That's not what I mean," Ellana sighs. "I… I fundamentally think about magic differently from you. Just–" she cuts off his interruption, "hear me out for a second. To you, magic is math. You start with fire, and you change how big your fireballs are by adding more or less energy to the spell. Lighting takes less energy to damage, but more energy to control. And the more finicky or theoretical you get the more math gets involved. Like, I bet you have a chart somewhere categorising the energy output of spirits vs wisps vs fragments, so when you're doing your necromancy thing you know what's required to pull over to animate any given body of a specific weight, and then again modulate it for how long it'll last."

Well he doesn't have such a thing on him. He memorised it early, when he first got into necromancy, and has been tweaking it ever since. After all, even things as small as fragments aren't one size fits all. "Alright. I follow."

"And to me," Ellana frowns and picks up a stick off the ground before nervously beginning to peel off its bark. “To me magic is music. And I don't just mean I can use music to cast, though I can, I mean that every spell sings to me. I can hear them. I learn new spells way faster than most, because all I have to do is hear the song a couple times and I'm able to recreate it. Conversely, if I cast a spell you didn't know, I have no fucking clue how to teach it to you. Show me a mana pattern chart and I'm just going to be confused. Start explaining the difference between creation and entropy magics and I might fight you because  _ that's not how those spells sound _ . So I… your fundamentals make no sense to me; also I'm bad at math."

Well that's strange, certainly, but it wouldn't be the weirdest thing that's happened so far. "So you can…  _ hear _ people casting spells? Does a spell sound the same every time? I suppose the categorisation of spells might be a little arbitrary… Would the same spell cast by a different mage sound different?" Ellana’s eyes snap to his face, shocked and maybe a little overwhelmed, so Dorian cuts off his rambling list of questions. "You okay?" he adds.

"Yeah, um. Most mages don't take that at face value, so it's a nice change. You know how you can hear several people sing the same song and tell that there are different singers but that it's still the same song? It's like that. If it's the same person it depends on how familiar they are with the spell. If it's a routine cast, then it's basically the same, but if it's an unfamiliar spell then the song might wobble a little bit."

"What does wobble mean in this context?"

"Oh like, if they flare their mana then the tempo speeds up weirdly. If the mana shape warps, that typically sounds out of tune. Sometimes." She frowns, as if some part of the explanation doesn't quite fit. "It makes sense in my head. Of course the explaining involves putting the квьзявэё into words, and from there translating it into Trade, which is an imprecise language most of the time…"

"Wait," Dorian cuts her rambling off, "Trade isn't your first language?"

"Uh…" Ellana freezes, though her fingers continue anxiously twisting her peeled stick. "No? Don't–" she starts, and then pauses to consider her words. "Don't tell Josephine," she whispers, suddenly very interested in the leaves beneath her still bare feet. "I can speak well enough to pass, but my reading comprehension isn't really uh… at par."

"You learned Trade but not how to read it?"

"I'm self taught," she snaps, somewhat defensively. "It wasn't relevant at the time."

"Well I hadn't picked up on it, so colour me impressed." He keeps his tone light. "It's not like such a thing is impossible to teach."

"That's not the point," Ellana sighs. "Could you imagine what the Chantry would say if they found out the Herald of Andraste was illiterate on top of being an Elvhen savage? It's not like people haven't tried to teach me, but they either treat me like I'm a dumbass six-year-old, or they accuse me of lying when I say the letters don't stay still!" The twig snaps when Ellana waves a hand in frustration, and she takes a slow breath. "We've gotten off track."

Right. Of course. The whole time magic thing.

"How are you with extrapolation?" Dorian asks. "If, say, I figured out how to do a time spell on a smaller case, a physical object or a few minutes in time, could you expand that to a larger scale?"

"Hmm," Ellana ponders for a moment, "that could work. I've had success with similar techniques in the past. Does that make it easier for you?"

"The more variables accounted for, the less worried I need to be about something going wrong, so: yes."

"Fantastic," she breathes a sigh of relief and relaxes for the first time that day.

"I am absolutely going to ask you 800 questions about  _ hearing _ magic, as soon as I can properly wrap my head around it."

She giggles. "Figures. I should uh… probably head back to camp?" She raises a hand to fidget with her hair tie, only to pull a whining Curioctopi from her black locks.

"You're a bored øчъикоъ й, aren't you?" She addresses the pink tentacle ball. "Let's go find you something more interesting to chew on, shall we?" She turns around and begins heading to their fire, faintly flickering in the distance.

"Ellana," Dorian calls, just before she's out of earshot. "Your secrets are safe with me."

"Thank you," she says, the most sincere she's been all evening before heading into the dark.

Dorian stands another moment or twelve before finally following after her. He's got so much to think over now, and so little of it will actually help them get back...

* * *

The Fade Boy flickers in and out of vision as Deacon stalks through the halls. They end up outside again, on a long staircase leading to the highest circle of the keep.

“The great hall is there,” the Fade Boy points to a large set of doors behind them. “And Envy is there,” he again points, this time to a figure standing with their back to them at the top of the staircase. It’s a power move, sure, but also a poor tactical decision. There’s no one around either. Pity.

Deacon creeps up the stairs, and the Fade Boy melds into the shadows. He gets nearly two-thirds of the way up the staircase before he can hear the Demon chuckling to itself.

“You think to catch me unawares?” it scoffs, presumably using the voice that matches the face it stole.

“Well to be fair,” Deacon hums, “I wasn’t really trying to hide.”

It growls and spins, bounding down a few steps before it realises he’s stopped advancing.

“I’ve been inside your head  _ boy _ ,” it hisses, stalking down the stairs. Deacon matches its rhythm going up. They’re twenty paces apart now. “I know your fear, your desire, your desperation.” Fifteen.

“Learn anything fun?” He keeps his tone light. Only a few more...

With a roar of frustration the Demon lunges, a reckless charge that’s telegraphed so obviously, the smallest of side steps would foil it. Instead Deacon backs down the stairs he just climbed. There’s five paces between them now. 

He fingers his knives, but does not draw them. “If this is your attempt to take my face,” he taunts, the two of them walking down the stairs in lockstep now, “you’re doing a very poor job.”

The Demon swings a fist this time, which Deacon deflects easily enough, though as their arms touch, the grasses around them burst into flame. The moment lasts for just long enough to realise the fire is familiar, pulled from his memory, before he blinks and it's gone. The Demon has a twisted crooked smile on its face.

“Yes,” it hisses, “I know.” Another blow, and it's a vision of his father as he last saw him, dead on the ground, blood pooling from his mouth and wounds in his back. Another hit, and it’s the memory of his mother, the wound in her breast, sloppy and uneven. Another, and it’s his sister, perfect blonde ringlets matching the even slice across her throat. All of them slowly blistering as they presumably did when their house burned to the ground.

It’s easy enough to remain impassive, focus on echoing blows and paying attention to the footwork, waiting for the correct moment to strike.

“What–” The Demon seemingly falters, and Deacon cracks a laugh. “What  _ are _ you? There’s just nothing. Nothing in you but Devotion and Love and- and  _ Faith _ ,” it spits the last word as if it’s somehow painful. 

“Wouldn’t you just like to know.” Finally its footing is off enough that Deacon can kick a leg out and send them both tumbling down the stairs. He controls the fall enough to get the upper hand on Envy, but not enough to prevent several nasty bruises given the lack of armour. He was expecting more of a fight really, but the Demon seems oddly unaccustomed to human limb proportions, so Deacon manages to yank it to its feet with wrenched arms. The blade to the sternum also seems to help as he forces the two of them towards the great hall doors. 

“Envy,” he croons, “don’t you want to see what I have planned for you?”

He kicks the doors to the great hall open, and though it can’t have been long, there’s a decent sized group of Templars there, many in less than hushed arguments that end as the door clangs open.

“Templars!” he adds a touch of Orlesian to his Fereldan accent to make him seem high class, and forces the Demon forward even as it strains in his grip. “I give you your Lord Seeker! See what has led you!” Then he lets go of the hands, and stabs the Demon in the back.

The crowd stumbles back in shock and outrage as its unholy shriek pierces the air. With rage and pain the Demon loses coherence, and with a twisting crunch it reverts back to its true form, a spindly thing of unprotected flesh, that screams as many many eyes take in its form. It moves to bolt, just as those closest draw blades, but Deacon is faster than all of them. Its neck is very thin, and his knives are very sharp. Demons don’t leave true corpses, so it dissolves rather than splatters, but the effect is rather the same and an uneasy silence hangs in the air.

"Andraste's hairy nipples!" a particularly rotund Templar comments, and the quiet snaps with a deluge of exclamations and shouted questions, until one particularly loud voice echoes above the others.

"Silence!" A woman in heavy plate pushes her way forwards. "Let's all take a moment before our tongues pull us astray with useless flapping. You have done us a service, stranger, in dispatching this demon, but it would be remiss of us to not question both its presence and yours. Who are you and why are you here?"

Deacon takes a moment to shake the worst of the demon goo off his knives before sheathing them, and surveying the gathered group. Rainier's probably in the back somewhere, judging by the beard, but there are so many full helmets that spotting the Evanuris would be an exercise in futility. He takes a couple steps onto a raised platform, the height better for this.

"Templars!" he calls, with as much nobility as he can muster without it sounding corny. "I am an agent of the Inquisition, and a Servant of the Herald of Andraste. My Lady has heard the cries of this world, and sent me to you, to beseech this holy order for aid in stopping the demonic threat posed by the Breach. I was expecting order, discipline, and honour. Instead I found that the demonic threat was already here, poisoning your ranks from the inside." Deacon lets his words hang heavy. There's no denying the fact that a Demon had full run of Therinfal without anyone noticing. 

"You have failed at your task," he allows some cold to slide into his voice. "Protectors you called yourselves, yet you sat here taking orders from that," he points to the pile of goo, "twiddling your thumbs as the world goes to shit and your friends get sent one by one to die!" There's more unrest at that statement, and several shouts of protest, so Deacon continues, louder.

"Surely you must have noticed! The patrols that go nowhere and don't come back. The new Lyrium that does strange things to the minds of those that take it, if it doesn't straight up kill them. Your leaders who won't look you in the eye or else lie their fucking asses off, and all of you sat here and did nothing. How many people arrived at this fort, never to leave it?"

"We were… we were just following orders," a man hesitantly calls from the left side of the room.

"Are you not a man?" Deacon snaps back. "Do you require your morals dictated to you, or can you make decisions for yourself?" There's a poignant pause, before Deacon continues on to what he really needs to say.

"I was sent to recruit you, but the Inquisition will not accept your order. You have failed at protecting your charges and yourselves, and proven that the Templar Order is all but useless. There will be no Templars within the Inquisition, but there will be protectors. Soldiers. Individual men and women, working together and striving to make a change. To build, rather than guard. We welcome recruits indiscriminately, and have ample supply to Lyrium that won't kill you faster than it typically does."

It's a good speech, Deacon thinks. Too harsh to really convince all of them but enough to spread rumours and doubt, and net a few recruits. He spots Yenna and Polluk standing not too far from Barris. The former two shoot him a nod, while the latter simply looks resigned.

"You would have us abandon the order?" someone scoffs. "Surely you don't mean to–" Deacon is saved from having to answer that assuredly inane question by several doors bursting open at once. The balconies are quickly lined with archers, but focus is drawn to the man bursting through the door on the opposite side of the hall. The red veins on the side of his neck pulse, as do those of his entourage. As he stumbles forward, Deacon catches sight of the Fade Boy passing off the staff to its rightful owner. Good.

"What is the meaning of this!" the Red Templar calls.

"Knight-Captain Denam," the woman who called the room to order greets him coldly.

"I suppose you'd have something to do with this, duBois," Denam spits as he crosses the room, only to slow as he finally notices Deacon. And then the goo pile on the floor. "What did you  _ do _ ?  **You were all supposed to be stained red! Kill them! Kill them all!** "

The archers on the balconies are quick. Some Templars raise their shields in time. Others do not. In the doorway past where Denam entered, Silvia stands, frozen with shock at how fast her brethren have turned on each other.

He darts to the side, avoiding arrows as best he can, and calming once he feels Solas lay a barrier on him.

"Templars!" duBois yells, "defend yourselves!" Not that they needed much encouragement, but it serves as a rally cry. There aren't many Red Templars on the ground, but the archers provide a significant challenge.

"Aim for the support pillars," Deacon shouts in the direction of his team, as he dodges a swipe from a Red Templar and stabs another in the neck. He knows that someone heard him when there's several sounds of splintering wood, and then suddenly half of the scaffolding comes down. A force blast from Solas, and then the other side falls too. From there it's an easy fight, as the Red ones aren't exactly at peak performance. Still, even as they put the last few down, the sounds of fighting can be heard from other parts of the fortress.

"This isn't over," Barris says to him. "We can decide what to do later, but for now, will you fight with us?"

The floor is coated in blood. There will only be more spilt.

"We will," Deacon confirms.

So much for a clean sweep.

* * *

It takes them the better part of a week to finally reach the Storm Coast. Fresh water is constant enough as the general area is muggy, but food remains a problem. Varric loses all but two of his crossbow bolts shooting at a deer that ends up evading them anyways. Sometimes they catch a rabbit or nug in the overnight traps, or stop at a river with enough fish that Ellana can freeze catch a few, but there's at least one day where neither happens. That day Dorian eats a handful of berries they've managed to scrounge, and tries to ignore the sensation of his stomach folding over on itself.

The hunger makes everyone gnarly. Dorian gets in a pissing match with Krem about something Tevinter or other that lasts until Varric snaps at the two of them to stop. Bull gets more and more paranoid, spending more time glaring at the horizon, and cuts short rests by pushing their movement far into the evening. In the quiet moments, Mother Giselle offers prayers.

And Ellana… deteriorates.

There are more and more times where she becomes seemingly unresponsive, and she slips out of Trade frequently when she speaks. One day she breaks down sobbing and can't stop for nearly an hour. The next she has a laughing fit, so strong she can barely seem to hold on to the Duty-Horse. She laughs until she coughs, and then coughs until they've poured most of their water supply down her throat and she can seemingly breathe again.

When she's angry, the earth rumbles. Sometimes trees fall over. They try to be quiet when that happens.

"Do you… want to talk about it?" Dorian asks one of her more lucid nights. 

"I… there's not much to talk about really. It's the lack of Veil."

"Oh.  _ Oh _ . You can hear it?"

"I can hear  _ everything _ ," she confirms. "I can't block it out. It's too much all at once and I don't… I can't…" There are tears forming in her eyes again, and Dorian looks away to flip a log on the fire.

"I'm worried I'm going to hurt someone," she admits.

"You haven't. You won't."

"You don't  _ know _ that. I can't make that assumption. I've had to reinforce the wards that keep my aura from getting out."

"Why would you need to hide your aura?" Dorian asks, baffled.

"It spooks horses," she mumbles.

"What… what even is your default mana?"

"From фэдама?" She raises an arm and a pulse of gentle warmth flows through him, almost like…

"Healing? Your default is a healing spell?"

Ellana winks. "Something like that."

"But that… why would your aura spook horses then? Ours don't even balk at this." He raises a hand, letting sparks wander over it for emphasis.

"People say there's only one source of magic. Maybe two, if you count blood. But they're wrong. There are others. And some of them… taint you." There's a burst of inky blackness over her fingers, and Dorian can't help the flinch as a sense of danger creeps up his spine.

Ellana curls up in a ball in the dirt next to the bedrolls, and doesn't say anything for the rest of the night.

Yet the next morning her eyes seem clearer, and she's almost cheerful as they pack up to get moving.

"Have you tried doing it on purpose yet?" she asks as Dorian heads to the nearby creek to refill his water flask.

"What do you mean?"

"Well you've got a sense of how your mana flows right? Have you tried using that knowledge with your spells? Letting the mana flow and only tweaking as needed, rather than forcing it into shape?”

Well he's thought about it, certainly. It seemed like a bit of a risk, but so did the mana exercises in general, and with them he's actually started to feel clear-headed.

"Is that how you cast your spells?"

"Absolutely. Costs way less mana that way, meaning it helps with endurance."

There's the obvious sex joke he could make, of course, but there are other implications. Endurance is a tricky thing, it’s not really that necessary for day to day magic use. Even in a duel, if you could manage to hit your opponent with a strong enough spell early enough, then it wouldn’t matter. But of course it does matter, as Dorian’s coming to learn, in actual combat. Where opponents are numerous and there’s no set end time and all that really matters is survival.

“You’ve seen a lot of combat then.”

“Yeah,” she sighs, her voice heavy. “I have.”

“Well I’m not opposed to experimenting,” he says, keeping his tone light. “I’d prefer to have a safety net of sorts.”

“That’s fair,” she nods, fortunately not stuck in the somber moment for too long. “We can set something up.”

_ I’m worried about you, _ he wants to say, but the words stick on his tongue.  _ You weren’t okay yesterday. I don’t know if you’ll be well enough tomorrow to keep that promise. _ But he can’t just say that. He barely knows Ellana, and directly pointing out a weakness like that would… It just isn’t done. Instead he nods and smiles and tries to focus the potential uncertainties of time magic, and not the wave of relief he feels that she’s doing alright. At least for this moment. They haven’t lost her yet.

The Curioctopi are more active, even as the infamous Storm Coast weather finally makes an appearance.

"Please tell me we don't have to sleep in this!" Varric shouts through the downpour.

"We're headed to a cave system!" Ellana shouts back. "We'll be there before nightfall."

It's miserable riding in the rain, especially when Ellana forces them to make a sharp turn towards the mountains. She makes them walk in a stream to avoid leaving tracks, and when the horses resist they have to dismount and coax them along. He’s chilled down to his bones, his fingers feel stiff, and if he hasn't caught a cold by now he certainly will within the next ten minutes.

The Duty-Horse didn't seem to have any issue with the stream but Ellana dismounts with everyone anyway. Maybe her feet have gone numb and that's why she doesn't mind them bare in the frigid water.

The rain lets up a bit, after a while. The clouds are too dark to really tell the time, and hunger is perpetual and eternal so he can't exactly tell how long they've been going, but he knows that his feet are frozen where they aren't blistered and that his jaw aches even as his teeth chatter. His knees scream bloody murder as the soft incline becomes far more pronounced, but just at the moment when he feels ready to just lie down and let the water take him where it may, Ellana points in the distance and says, "There. That's where we're going."

It's hard to see through the rain, but there's definitely proper rock formations over there. It's both better and worse with a goal in sight. They trade the stream for walking over steep hills, many of which the horses struggle with. Duty goes first, identifying the easiest path so that the others may follow. Ellana does something behind them in the dirt which presumably hides tracks, but Dorian is mostly too miserable to care. He wants to beg them to stop, just for a few moments so things will hurt less, but he knows that would just make it worse when they start moving again. Bull catches his arm when he stumbles on slick rock, and when they finally reach the cave, he's so numb he barely notices. 

It's not much of a cave. More of a tunnel, given that if you go far enough you'll come out the other side of the mountain. And there are giant spiders. Of course.

The electricity comes easy to his hands and flows like the river they were just wading through. It isn't even until he's looking at the pile of twitching corpses that he realises he just decimated most of them by himself. He can barely tell any of his mana was depleted. Ellana looks impressed.

“The wind blows right through,” Bull comments, “but it’s out of the rain at least.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Ellana calls, “it’ll be warmer where we’re going.”

Dorian wonders if he somehow missed a branching cave tunnel, but given the bewildered look Varric and Bull share he figures he probably didn’t. Ellana doesn’t pay them any mind though, simply turning in a slow circle before fixating on a portion of wall. 

She sways a little bit as she starts humming but as she moves her hands the stalactites and stalagmites pull away like a dramatic curtain, revealing a smooth expanse of wet grey rock.

“The doors like to hide themselves when there are people around,” Ellana says like that makes any damn sense but then she places her hand against the wall and lines of faint blue runes start spreading from her fingertips. It’s dim at first but after only a few moments the glowing blue outline of a door large enough for a horse or two becomes visible.

“There are walls like that in Orzammar,” Varric murmurs. “No one can figure out how to make them open, so it’s assumed they’re decorative.”

“Oh they open alright,” Ellana chuckles. “You just have to know the key.” Then she snaps her fingers, and with a nearly soundless grind the wall splits at the middle seam and the doors swing open. The tunnel ahead is perfectly square, lit every few steps with softly glowing runes. It’s tall enough that the horses will fit no problem, but someone riding a horse might risk smacking their head on the ceiling.

One by one they file into the strange passage, and with another wave of her hands, Ellana closes the doors behind them, presumably hiding them again as well. She’s practically bouncing with excitement as she leads them confidently forwards through the faintly sloping tunnel. The Curioctopi whiz around her chirruping at each other, and Hope flares brighter from where it hid in his saddlebags to stay dry.

The hallway ends in a rough square room, walls bereft of the lighting runes meaning the lustrous black floor isn’t notable until it starts refracting the multi colours of spirit light. Ellana tosses up a small magelight as well.

“Alright, this might spook the horses, so hold on to them for this,” she says, giving Dorian just enough time to fumblingly wrap the slick reins around his hands a second time before she starts singing, and with a lurch that feels both like falling and flying, the floor descends into the earth.

It’s impossible to tell, really, how fast or how far they’re going. The horses buck, certainly, but calm quickly enough when Hope settles over them. Varric spends the entire descent cursing. Bull looks at the ceiling, as if he can somehow attempt to calculate distance based on smooth featureless walls and the ever retreating long out of sight ceiling. 

Dorian takes a moment to appreciate the song. It’s clearly got words, even though he has no idea what they are, and Ellana seems completely relaxed while singing them even while she’s guiding their seeming plummet into an abyss. 

Eventually the song slows, and the platform comes to a stop. There’s another short hallway leading to a door, and Ellana takes a deep breath just before it.

“Alright,” she says. “There’s something– some _ one _ waiting for us on the other side. She’s… marginally terrifying to people who haven’t met her before but I can promise you you aren’t in any danger. She isn’t going to eat you. And before you ask Bull, no we can’t fight her or any creatures like her.” And with that alarming statement she places a hand on the door and pushes it open.

“Stranger, what–” Varric starts, only to cut off as the opened doorway is suddenly filled with the biggest lizard head Dorian has ever seen.

Not that he’s seen many Dragons, of course, but he’s read about them and seen the supposed to-scale statues scattered throughout Tevinter architecture and this is… easily triple the largest of those. It’s got multiple sets of menacing slitted eyes and a wide heavy jaw that opens to reveal multiple layers of razor sharp teeth and multiple forked tongues. There’s a loud thrashing grinding sound, and the giant tongues wave around wildly and then the creature… squeaks?

“Пøкиа!” Ellana calls, excitedly wrapping the giant snout in a hug as its tongues wiggle all over and pull her off the ground. Ellana makes a series of noises that sound a bit like there’s a beehive in her mouth and then the creature sets her back down so she can give affectionate scratches to its face.

“Who’s a good girl? Who’s a good girl! I think it’s you~” she purrs at the giant lizard.

The horses panic, of course, and bolt back into the dark of the moving platform which is the farthest away they can easily get. Mother Giselle curses in Orlesian before fainting, and is saved from a harsh landing on stone by the quick reflexes of Krem.

Dorian takes a step closer to Bull. “Is what I think is happening actually happening?”

“Stranger getting fondled by the largest Dragon I’ve ever seen?” Varric asks, dazed.

“Yup,” Bull comments though in response to whom isn’t clear.

They all watch, horrified yet also entranced, as the giant lizard drags their, comparatively, alarmingly small Elvhen compatriot out of the hallway and then proceeds to shove her to the ground and excitedly rub its face against her body while Ellana giggles.

“What… what am I supposed to do with this?”

“I didn’t know they made Dragons that big.”

“She’s not a Dragon!” Ellana calls, swatting away a tongue that apparently found a ticklish spot under her chin. “Got no wings!”

“If you say so!” Varric shouts back. “I don’t want there to be other creatures that big,” he adds with a shudder.

“Look at her, she’s huge!” Bull’s awestruck voice rings out, and he’s the first to step towards the gigantic creature.

“She’s my good baby!” Ellana muses, from the floor. “You wanna pet her?” and Bull gets starry eyed. Dorian watches with some apprehension as Ellana gives a formal introduction between the Iron Bull and the giant totally-not-a-Dragon Paikea, and then shows him where on her face she likes scratches. Just under the eyes, apparently. The man is cautious, but when the large creature responds to the touch with naught but a faint rumble, as if a purr sounded like thunder, then Bull pats all over her face. 

Ellana has the biggest, doofiest grin on her face as she waves the rest of them over. One by one they head, if not over to  _ Paikea _ , then at least out of the hallway into the dramatically larger space, a network of archways and passages. Dorian’s about to pull away from the group to examine where exactly they’ve wound up when an unfamiliar figure emerges from one of the archways with a click of her tongue. 

She’s an older Dwarven woman, dark brown skin contrasting with a tight weave of greying curls, and a sparkle in her eye. When she speaks, her accent is heavy and unfamiliar, but the wry smirk on her face isn't. 

“Really, Øчъикоъй,” she calls, “you could hug someone else first for a change.”

Ellana does a double take before freezing as if she can’t believe her eyes. “Мамана?” Her voice wavers.

“Mom?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  **Ившидагъядн (Evsheedagyadn)**  
>  Øчъикоъй, _(aichikoj - where j is a very soft y sound)_ : Little Trickster. This version of little has an exclusively positive connotation  
> Атøмюхеъ, _(ataimyuchye)_ : Temporary resting place  
> Неъвдуюсаъёвяднз, _(nyevduyusayovyadnz)_ : Honesty condemns me. Quite a nasty curse and/or accusation when in the formal, but with the informal I as it’s used here it acts similar to ‘well fuck me’  
> Квьзявэё, _(kvazyaveyo)_ : The feeling or aura of a sound  
> Фэдама _(fedama)_ : Magic from the fade  
> Мамана, _(maMAna)_ : Mother
> 
> Quick author's aside: Dickface is 'bad at math' because she was never taught math. She has a hard time reading Trade because she's dyslexic. That's all! See you all in Febuary~


	6. Чысаъх

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Чысаъх - chisakh - Protector
> 
>  **Previously on DWoof,**  
>  Ellana does a double take before freezing as if she can’t believe her eyes. “Мамана?” Her voice wavers. “Mom?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait on this one! It's a doozie of a cliffhanger and I wanted to avoid letting it hang for toooo long. ;)
> 
> Please thank antebellum13 for correcting my terrible grammar!
> 
> A note on language: The language Dickface and her mother speak is one that deemphasises the self/individual. "I" is typically implied rather than outright stated, and it's use is often considered rude so if it comes up it's for significant reason. In the translations I've noted it as _formal I_ and the generic term for a person as _informal I._

* * *

There is a long moment of silence, and then Ellana bolts toward her mother. She falls to her knees and skids a bit before they collide, but then she’s wrapping the older woman in a fierce hug. 

“Мамана,” Ellana calls again as the woman’s arms surround her, eyes filled with delight and a sense of wistful sorrow. They embrace for a long moment.

Eventually the mother pulls back, running an affectionate hand over her daughter’s rain-soaked hair. “Come now,” she says, mouth tripping over the unfamiliar tongue. “Introduce me to your friends.”

“Right.” Ellana stands slowly wiping a few tears off her cheeks. “Everyone, this is my mother Тюzэнэ. Tyuzené, this is The Iron Bull, Dorian, on Dorian’s shoulder is Hope, and then there’s Varric, Cremisius, Revered Mother Giselle unfortunately spooked by Paikea, and these tiny ones,” she gestures to the Curioctopi who’ve slowly been floating over to the lizard without getting too close, “are Curiosity.”

Tyuzené brings clasped hands forward in a formal greeting. “It is a rare pleasure that my daughter brings home actual friends.”

“Mom!” Ellana exclaims, but her mother only laughs.

“The pleasure is ours, Ma’am.” Bull sounds nearly gallant, even as he pets a giant lizard.

“I–” Ellana starts, but then hesitates. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, because I am, but why are you here? Who’s watching the kids?”

“There’s my fierce чысаъх,” Tyuzené sighs. “Always looking to others, rather than herself. The children are fine. Your mentor stopped by, and her lovely wife. They agreed to keep an eye on things while you were found.”

“Oh,” Ellana says, raising an eyebrow. “And you… trust them with that?”

“Of course,” Tyuzené replies without hesitation. “Don’t you?”

“I…” Ellana frowns, twisting her fingers together. “I don’t know.”

“You have learned doubt. It was not a necessary lesson.”

Ellana chuckles, but it’s weak. “I thought you wanted me to stop charging into everything headfirst?”

“Caution perhaps, but never doubt. Your scars will bear you forward, but you need not let them weigh you down.”

“Right. Of course. Хошу.” Ellana stumbles on her words a little, rubbing a hand over her eyes again.

“There is food to be had,” Tyuzené turns to the group again, “if a fire was to be started. Additional bedding was brought as well.”

“Thank the Maker,” Krem groans.

“Careful, Stranger, or we’re going to start liking your mother more than you,” Varric jokes.

“I mean fair, my mom is great,” Ellana says, even as her mother scoffs.

“So fickle, those you carry with you.” It’s such a simple phrase, for all the weight it seems to hold.

“I know,” Ellana says, distant and melancholic. “I’m trying to put them down.”

“Everything you need is in Paikea’s harness.” Tyuzené gestures towards a darkened doorway and Ellana nods, wandering off in a slight daze. The older woman waits until she’s vanished into the darkness before letting out a long sigh.

“Is she gonna be okay?” Krem asks, breaking the silence.

“She will endure,” Tyuzené says, though she doesn’t sound happy about it. Dorian swallows hard and realises he isn’t particularly happy with it either. “With hope, she will find her light before the end.”

“She will,” the tiny wisp on Dorian’s shoulder determinedly speaks.

“Glad to hear it.” Tyuzené smiles, but it does not reach her eyes. 

Then they stand in thickened quiet until Ellana returns, dragging a heavy sack and carrying a contraption under her other arm. She still looks a bit dazed, but her eyes have a bit of spark back in them. A fire gets built, and clothing that can be removed to dry without compromising modesty is laid out. Someone eventually remembers the horses, and after a bit of deliberation they’re moved to a small room far from the sight of Paikea. There’s a fountain here, water coming up fresh and clean, but feeding them will be a question for tomorrow.

Bull starts to protest when Ellana starts cooking, but she laughs him off explaining, “I don’t make the rules, Bull. If we camp in a cave, that means I have to cook. Plus this way,” she rifles around in the large bag pulling out a series of small boxes with a triumphant cry, “I can actually spice things! Oh and don’t worry,” she says, turning to Varric, “I’ll make something mild enough for your southerner sensibilities as well.”

“Am I grateful or offended?” Varric muses. “I feel I should be offended.”

“You can have the spicy stuff if you want. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Mother Giselle rouses with the smell of cooking food, and for the first time since they’ve landed in this blighted future the looming sense of dread seems to have faded from the group. The food is plentiful, and hot enough that Dorian can feel the burn on the back of his tongue. If he were left to solitude he might find homesickness with it, but conversation is far more engaging than his own thoughts.

“You mentioned kids,” Bull addresses Ellana around bites of a large slab of meat Dorian has yet to properly identify. “Got a lot of siblings running around?”

“Hardly,” Ellana scoffs while Tyuzené hides a smirk. “Мамана runs an orphanage.”

“Does everyone call you mom then?” Dorian wonders. “Or is she just special?”

“My circumstances were somewhat unique,” Ellana says with a wry smile.

“There were many who wanted her,” Tyuzené begins slowly, “but they were collectors. More interested in possessing the exotic than raising a child.” Ellana’s face goes blank even as her hands twitch. “And even the most acceptable didn’t take well to meeting her.”

“Well to be fair, I didn’t exactly help with that,” Ellana cuts in. “Experiments with excrement aside, I seem to recall throwing at least one dish, and several pieces of cutlery.”

“When you say experiments are we talking thrown or more placed on a seat cushion?” Varric asks.

“It’s polite to remove your footwear inside a living dwelling,” Ellana looks the picture of innocence. “And there were lots of deepstalkers about. I thought there was a real opportunity, even though I never managed to get it to work.”

“Small mercies,” Tyuzené says with a shake of her head as Bull cackles.

“Quite the hellion. She get in a lot of fights?” Bull looks eager.

“You have no idea,” Ellana groans.

“There was a betting pool for a while, to see how long she could go without breaking bones.”

“Seriously?!” Ellana screeches. “With who?”

“Зэгёсанвици ‘ ызлоёхвøшу ‘ ызпрадøча ‘ косаншю.” Tyuzené lists them off on her fingers.

“Well fuck me. How long was that going on?”

“Until well…” Tyuzené trails off.

“Right. That. I…” Ellana’s voice chokes up as tears form in her eyes again, and she looks so small in the dim flickering firelight. Her face shakes. “Мамана ‘ кягёсалвигл.”

“Пяньсалач,” Tyuzené reaches across the fire and takes her daughter’s hand in her own, eyes tender yet breaking. “Ёсалøн / нажугø.” And that’s when Ellana truly bursts into tears.

Tyuzené moves fast, abandoning her spot at the fire to instead wrap her arms around her child. She croons soft words even as Ellana sways and shakes, eventually calming her enough that she can pull the both of them away from the firelight and towards Paikea, who’s barely visible except for her eyes reflecting the Curioctopi in the dark. 

Dorian tries to keep his eyes averted from the both of them, but he can’t help but look at everyone else around the campfire. It’s a range of sadness and sympathy and bone deep weariness. Mother Giselle seems somewhat wistful. 

“I suspect they have been separated a long time,” she says, voice barely carrying. Everyone else simply nods, and finishes their food.

The Duty-Horse emerges, dragging a second pack filled with spare blankets, a few furs, and some springy slabs of what seems like dried moss. 

“Let’s… give them some time,” Krem says, looking over to where they can hear the two voices, murmuring in the dark.

“Fair enough.” Bull nods and stretches.

And it is fair. Dorian’s exhausted, and the heat from the fire has only really just started sinking into his bones. Still, even though the bedding is the most comfortable he’s had in days, sleep doesn’t come easy. 

He keeps an eye on the fire as it flickers. Watches Paikea’s eyes glint in the darkness. The Curioctopi circle, exploring the new area, and eventually one of them illuminates the small, strange family. Kneeling, with foreheads pressed against each other, just breathing. He feels a pulse of magic, and realises it’s healing. It’s Ellana’s healing. 

There are sparks on his fingers, and for once that doesn’t bring discomfort. 

Then he slips, quietly, into the Fade.

* * *

Despite the lack of sunlight, their underground haven is brighter when Dorian wakes. There are metal stands lining the walls, each holding a shard filled with faintly glowing blue liquid. Varric and Mother Giselle seem to still be sleeping, though Ellana’s mother is seated not far from the remains of the fire, poking its ashes with a stick. There’s a murmur of voices a fair ways away, but they’re quiet enough that Dorian can’t really pick them out.

Tyuzené’s eyes meet his, and she raises a finger to her lips in the ubiquitous symbol for quiet, before slipping several off-white orbs into Ellana’s bedroll.

“There is bread and berry spread,” she offers, as if Dorian hadn’t seen her doing whatever she just did. He stretches his hands a bit, grateful that the kink in his neck has lessened after a night of comfortable sleep. 

“Thank you,” he accepts the offered food and chews slowly, savoring the meal in a way he wouldn’t were it plentiful.

“Dorian, you’re awake!” Ellana skips over, earning a disgruntled groan from Varric.

“And rested for once.” Dorian smiles. 

“I was wondering if you wanted a staff.” Ellana is bouncing on her feet, slightly too loud for their still sleeping companions.

“They have staves down here?”

“Well no, but there is a forge. That's why I picked this spot, as opposed to any other. I’m going to make Bull a really big sword, Krem a smaller sword and a shield, Varric some more crossbow bolts as soon as he’s awake to give specifications, and maybe some trap pieces or whatever else we need. Do you want a staff?”

Putting aside her sudden blacksmithing prowess, Dorian takes a moment to consider the question. When they first landed in this Veilless future he would have said yes, easily, to have an anchor for focus and control. But he’s been managing without so far, and casting staffless has felt so… easy.

“Put me down as a maybe,” he says eventually. “We’ll do some more magic training, and if that goes well, I won’t need one.”

Ellana’s smile is small but warm.

“You will need shoes,” Tyuzené grumbles with a frown.

“Ugh, I know mom,” Ellana groans. “I’m not stupid.”

“And yet, your feet are bare.”

“Fine, I’ll go make leather footwraps or something. There’s no winning with you.” she rolls her eyes and then wanders off.

“Шен,” Tyuzené murmurs fondly with a shake of her head.

Eventually Dorian decides he really should get up and properly start his day. His outer layer is still a bit damp, so he leaves it where it is for now. At the fountain he refills his waterskin, and finds the room is fully lit and the water smooth enough to see his reflection. _Ugh_ , he’s never looked good with a beard, and this half grown in one is the worst of both worlds. And of course he left his shaving kit in his pack rather than on his person…

There’s nothing to be done for it, really, not until they’re back in civilisation. 

As close to refreshed as he’s going to get, he pokes his head in with the horses. The Duty-Horse is standing between them and the door, but the five of them seem relatively peaceful, mostly munching on a large pile of plantlife on the floor.

“Where did that come from?” he wonders aloud.

“Paikea got it,” Krem confirms from over his shoulder, and Dorian tries to suppress his surprised jerk. From the looks of the man’s face he didn’t exactly succeed. “Apparently there are glens of underground grasses or something that she was sent to fetch.”

Dorian… doesn’t know what to make of that.

“Huh,” he says.

“Yup.” Krem gives an overwhelmed nod and then wanders further down the hallway.

It's a fairly long hallway, one of several branching off from the large area they've stationed themselves in, and this one has plenty of doorways.

"Hey Ellana!" Dorian calls. "Is it safe to explore?"

"Uh, probably?" She shouts back. "Give me a sec–" there's a faint grinding in the stone nearby. "Okay! You're fine."

With that taken care of, Dorian starts poking his head through doorways. Most of them are groups of plain stone rooms, some of them larger than others, but all without furniture or decoration so it takes a couple repeats for him to realise what he might be looking at. There are the basic suites with an open space for a table and some chairs and a decent sized bedroom, the larger suites probably for couples, the ones with many small rooms probably meant for families. At the end of the hallway there are two large archways, one a room of endless deep and empty shelves, the other a room of pools, most empty and dry but a few with a foot of sludge. There are spaces for runes, Dorian notes, even if none are currently placed there.

He wanders back to the main room to find that Ellana's removed a stone wall to reveal a massive blacksmith setup, complete with a trail of lava against the far wall. But despite the array of tools, there's no design or personalisation here either. It's all utilitarian.

Ellana sits on the floor nearby, frowning as she crudely stitches a few pieces of leather together.

"What was this place?" Dorian asks after a while. "It looks like people could have lived here."

"But no one ever did," Ellana sighs. "It was built to be a trade outpost, between the Dwarves and the Elvhen empire. This is just the base outline, a proper architect would have gone through and radically customised the designs, but there's a lot that would've been here. Conference rooms for meetings, kitchens, baths, some extended land to the west for farming and animal rearing, ideally a nearly self sufficient place of equity and cultural exchange."

"So what happened?"

"It was abandoned," Ellan’s voice becomes sharp and crackling. "If you believe the legends, Mythal, the Dalish goddess of wisdom and justice, led her armies into the Deep Roads and slaughtered the entire population of one of the largest Dwarven thaigs. The Dwarves retreated from the surface in fear, abandoning all projects such as this one."

"Seems an odd thing for a god of justice to do."

"Yes well if you were the arbiter of justice, anything you did would be justified," she spits, before she takes a moment to reign herself in. "That is of course, if you believe the legends."

"Do you?"

Ellana chuckles darkly. “There are thousands of bodies buried in the dark, children, archivists, farmers, and no one will ever know their names or lay them to rest. Yet the stone screams with their dying cries, memories of shock and loss and horror carved in the minds generation after generation because it’s all of them we have left! It’s all–” the anger in her voice fades suddenly leaving a mournful line of regret. “It’s all we have left.”

“I see,” Dorian murmurs, entirely unsure whether it's more appropriate to leave or attempt to offer comfort. Ellana makes a few more stitches, before crowing in triumph and cutting the thread with her teeth.

“Hah!” her melancholy mood is suddenly gone, replaced with exuberance. “We are good to go!”

It’s such a sharp switch that it takes Dorian several moments to properly find his tongue. “Actually I did have something to ask of you.”

“Oh?”

“Could you make me a razor?”

Ellana looks up for the first time to properly take in his face, and then bursts out laughing.

“Glad my suffering is amusing to you.”

“Don't worry, Dorian,” she says between giggles. “We'll get that mess off your face asap.”

“Thanks,” Dorian says dryly. But he also means it, so it's fine.

“Hey Bull!” She shouts, as she slips her crude slippers onto her feet. “Any requests for the metal in this blade?”

“Are there options?” Bull calls back. Ellana stands and places a light hand on Dorian’s non-exposed shoulder.

“See if you can get some magic work done,” she says. “This may take a while.” Dorian nods, and Ellana smiles, then skips down the hallway to where Bull is presumably waiting.

Dorian does certainly attempt to get some proper work on untangling the holes in the time magic theory. A few of the side rooms are even dusty enough to allow him to write out some basic calculations, but even when working small it still feels like there’s something that he’s missing.

Eventually he’s pulled from his frustrated musings by Ellana’s soft singing and the sounds of clanging metal. Realising he’s been kneeling on the harsh stone floor long enough for it to start to hurt, he stands, knees protesting as he shakes the feeling back into them. He drinks some water, ignores the mild sensation of hunger in his belly, and goes to check on things.

Ellana, it turns out, is singing while she makes a sword. Dorian would wonder if the singing were actually required, but he can feel the magic in the air, wild and sharp on his tongue and entirely unfamiliar.

It’s quite fascinating to watch, really. 

Ellana’s stripped off her outer armour and rolled up the sleeves of her tunic to reveal surprisingly buff forearms. There’s lava pooled in several places now, even from where Dorian’s standing it’s _sweltering_ , but Ellana seems unbothered, moving with easy confidence. Piles of ore now sit where none were before, along with several empty rows of small molds, crossbow bolts he realises after a moment.

The song continues as Ellana slowly shapes what will clearly become the sword for Bull, pausing only in her work when molten metal has reached the right consistency to be poured into the molds which are then left to cool.

Tyuzené approaches, a slab of bread covered in spiced meat in her hands, which she shoves in Dorian’s face. “Eat,” she says.

Dorian’s stomach clenches down empty, but it’s really not like he _needs_ food right now…

“Eat,” Tyuzené’s voice becomes far more insistent and she shoots Dorian a disapproving look that makes all thought of dissent too uncomfortable to handle, so he reluctantly takes the food from her hands. The meat is warm, with a bitter tang that brings back memories of a restaurant by the sea and his mother’s quiet approval.

It’s only when he’s halfway through the meal that he realises the headache he hadn’t noticed has cleared up. Perhaps the holes in time magic would be more apparent if he worked backwards…

By the end of the day he has no solutions but a couple promising theories, and Ellana has made a sword.

It’s pink.

Well the blade is mostly pink. Metallic and pale, fading to a lilac as it approaches the hilt, which itself is a far deeper purple intercut with a plain but functional crossguard. It’s also large enough that Dorian thinks he’d struggle to lift it. Ellana presents it to Bull with a flourish, and he responds with an impressed whistle.

“Dawnstone as requested, enough nevarrite to give it an anti-magic kick, and a couple of other things to make sure the alloy held properly,” Ellana explains, a delighted smirk on her face. “Might be a touch lighter than you’re used to, additional heft would have made the brittleness of the dawnstone a liability, but I think I’ve compensated enough that you won’t notice any performance deficits as compared to standard steel.”

Bull whistles again, stepping away from the group so he can give the blade a few experimental swings. “You’re right, that is light,” he confirms. “I like it!”

“Yes!” Ellana pumps a fist in the air.

“Hurry up and get Krem’s stuff done, I wanna test this puppy out!”

“I’m working on it,” Ellana laughs. “And please keep in mind, this blade was meant to keep an edge and won’t take well to unnecessary sharpening. Please check with it first, it’ll let you know when it needs work. But do make sure to keep it clean, it’ll help with longevity.”

“Got it,” Bull confirms, distractedly running a thumb over the qunlat subtly engraved in its hilt. “Do I get to name her?” he asks after a moment.

“As if I’d take that from you,” Ellana scoffs. “But give her time. She may yet surprise you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bull nods, and wanders away from the evening fire to play with his new toy some more.

Everything seems calm enough as they all get settled for the night, until Ellana slides into her bedroll, shooting out of it almost immediately with an almighty shriek. Tyuzené covers a cough with her hand, as Ellana pokes her head back in the bedroll before glaring at her mother.

“Did you put deepstalker eggs in my bedroll?” she shouts, and her mother bursts out laughing.

“The look on your face!” Tyuzené chuckles.

“Well fine then,” Ellana sticks her tongue out and starts dragging her bedroll away from the fire and towards a now alert Paikea. “I’m going to sleep over here, and the babies are coming with me.”

“Rest well,” Tyuzené calls, before returning to poking the fire with a stick.

“It is good to see her playful,” Mother Giselle comments, “though she is sure to retaliate.”

“I’m counting on it,” Tyuzené smirks.

Dorian shakes his head in amusement, and falls asleep easily.

* * *

_Sleeping was a mistake_ , Dickface realises almost immediately.

She has only a moment or two to get her bearings, loose garb, blunt and heavy sword in hand, standing barefoot on the packed dirt of a fighting ring surrounded entirely by mirrors. The Fade-Earth is unresponsive as ever, and the sword weight is dragging her off center, but even as she widens her stance to compensate the air is filled with roaring fury.

A mirror shatters, revealing more reflections behind it, jagged and crooked, and in its place stands Rage. Fire from unseen torches flickers up, filling her vision with orange haze, and Rage roars before rushing her.

Lifting the blade is exhausting, her elbows screaming with the speed, but she moves enough to parry it's swiping claws. The earth beneath it heats, small flames starting to flicker as it turns and leaps again. The sword is still heavy, but she's prepared this time and knocks aside its clumsy swipe, and the next two that follow after.

Stepping carefully over its heated trails, she does her best to ignore the movement in the mirrors, warping and bulging, and keeps her eyes on her assailant. Rage growls and the earth lurches, sloping suddenly as the sword weight shifts. She goes with it, falling into a roll, heat kept from her skin by speed, cloth, and hair, and she's back on her feet to parry again and again.

It tries to lurch the world again, but she doesn't go, gritting her teeth and digging the sword a few inches into the ground to use as a grip as she rides the unsteadiness like a wave. Its fury is palpable as the air heats, and she can feel her own stubbornly rising in turn.

_Fuck this._

Rage pulls back a little, and she yanks the sword from the dirt, arms wavering as its heft suddenly concentrates at the tip. Rage claps its hands and then slowly pulls them apart, revealing a growing ball of fire. Dickface reaches for ice but she's always been shit with ice and either way the center of the dream eludes her, so when Rage chucks the fireball she leaps sideways to avoid it. It hurtles, smashing into the mirrors behind her with a discordant clang, searing black smoke pouring through the reflections even as hot shards of molten metal scatter to the earth.

Rage screeches again, though it's more of a clicking cackle, and Dickface flicks a searing lock of hair out of her face and adjusts her grip on the sword. The fire comes easier to Rage now and it throws more at her, the pounding rhythm of the fight only increasing as mirrors warp and smash, littering the ground with blazing shards. It swipes at her again and she blocks. It slinks to the side and moves again, rushing with the lurching earth this time. Dickface keeps her balance at the cost of her dodge, and three of its talons graze the skin of her cheek.

A tongue slides out of its face, lapping her blood from its fingers as it chitters away.

_Fuck. This._

With a frustrated growl she goes on the offensive, using the unusual heft to add speed as she brings her blade down. Rage yowls and squirms to the side, narrowly missing her swipe and the two that follow it. For a Fade-Being it catches on quickly, and after the first frantic dodges it falls into proper fighting stance.

They recenter in the ring, the air scorching with heat despite the lack of smoke, and in retrospect she’ll know this was a terrible idea, but right now blood drips into her mouth, and frustration turns to fury as the sword weight shifts yet again, so she spits on the ground and leaps first.

There are sparks where blade and claws meet. Back and forth they go, testing positions and vying for dominance, but even as she knocks it back, the ground is still burning everywhere it steps. It comes down to a choice: to press a risky advantage or back off for a safer opening.

Dickface plants a bare foot onto burning soil, screaming as she slices up Rage’s torso.

It burns. Of course it does. It rattles through her flesh, like her bones are melting, but with the pain comes focus. She gets two more hits on Rage in quick succession, now that she walks the flame, and Rage hisses as viscous yellow fluid starts leaking from it’s wounds.

Something in the room is smoking now, but her focus is on the fight. She will _not_ be bested by this.

Faster they move, a light brush leaving a searing burn on her shoulder. She shows teeth in a hiss, leaping close enough to slice one of its arms off in a smooth motion. The limb goes flying end over end, the smell of sulfur rising as its blood starts to corrode that which it touches. 

Dickface snarls with victory, only to be blindsided by the speed at which it rushes her, slamming her face first into one of the mirrors. It shatters at the force, shards digging into her skin and Dickface drops the sword with a howl only to look down at her hands.

Her hands–

She’s engulfed with flame, now glowing orange skin slowly cracking open along molten yellow fissures and iridescent talons. She looks to the mirrors, only to find her reflection staring back in a halo of fire, flesh bubbling and warping with the heat revealing singed black bone and magma, venom fangs and blazing eyes.

_Abomination._

She slams her head back, forcing the demon to let go, and tries desperately to once more find the center of the dream, to force it out. She stumbles, backing away as Rage slinks forward, quiet laughter growing louder and louder as she retreats, frantically grasping for anything to hold on to.

“Got you,” the demon chitters, and her world whites out in pain as her foot lands and one of the molten mirror shards slides into her skin. It burrows into her, agony radiating as bones shatter and then melt together, and there’s many voices cackling now. More Rage in shattered reflections, emerging from cracks and holes and laughing as she burns and burns and screams. 

She drops to her knees as the world lurches again, the entire space flipping end over end as open palm drops unsuspecting victim into large gaping mouth. The blackness opens wide beneath her as she frantically clings to the mirror frame, but the fire flares and her crisp limbs snap off

And

She

Plummets

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  **Ившидагъядн (Evsheedagyadn)**  
>  Чысаъх, _(chisakh):_ Protector  
> Мамана, _(maMAna):_ Mother  
> Хошу, _(khoshu):_ An expression of gratitude  
> Зэгёсанвици, _(zegyosanvitsi):_ A blacksmith, one who makes from metal  
> Ызлоёхвøшу, _(izloyokhvaishu):_ Neighbours  
> Ызпрадøча, _(izpradaicha):_ Colleagues, those worked with  
> Косаншю, _(koshanshyu):_ Smuggler  
> Кягёсалвигл, _(kyagyosalvigl):_ I fucked up, formal I  
> Пяньсалач, _(pyanasalach):_ I know, formal I  
> Ёсалøн / нажугø, _(yosalain / nazhugai):_ I still love you (or) My love for you is constant, formal I, formal you  
> Шен, _(shyen):_ child
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! I've finally drafted out of the Future Timeline, so my writing speed should hopefully pick up? I won't jinx myself by saying these scenes were the hardest thing in DWoof to write, but it's safe to say this was the longest section of tough scenes back to back. I'm excited for what's next... 3:) 
> 
> Thanks to @missystrange1 for the editing advice. See you all in March!~~


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